Delicate
by Day Met the Night
Summary: "I used to have to try so hard to shove all my nightmares away just to function. But you've changed that. You're like a memory charm and a healing potion all at the same time, and I can't figure out if it's an antidote or a poison in disguise." Dramione. HIATUS
1. Breakable

**Disclaimer: **Do I own Harry Potter? Hmm... let me think... nope, nope not really. That incredible honour goes to JK Rowling, bless her XD Neither do I own any of the song lyrics you will _ever _see in this fic, excluding "A Morning Lullaby" in Chapter... 8. Yes, I believe it is 8. I do happen to own _those _lyrics. But nothing else, so please don't sue me :) Alright, lovelies, read on!

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><p><strong>Prologue<br>Breakable  
><strong>"_And we are just breakable, breakable,  
>breakable girls and boys."<br>_Ingrid Michaelson

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><p>The memories came too easily. They caught her unaware, off guard, when she was least expecting them. They crept to the corners of her thoughts, and when she finally acknowledge them, and they poured into her mind in great tidal waves, crashing around her consciousness, ruining her concentration, and tugging at her sanity. Every once in a while she'd be seized by an awful fit, convulsions that tormented her body as the horrible recollections hurtled through her and stabbed at her very existence. She had to come up with distractions, ideas that would keep them from coming. Sometimes it was easy, sometimes it was difficult. It depended on the day. And how hard she thought of them before they came. And who she was with.<p>

Harry tried to help. He took her out to dinner every weekend, no matter how busy he became with the Order. He stayed over her flat most nights, sleeping on the other side of her bed so he'd be there if she ever woke up screaming. He cooked most of her meals and carried her around the house, sometimes bridal-style, sometimes on his back, and did her chores when her legs felt like they would collapse beneath her and she'd never be able to walk again. He was a beautiful, beautiful companion, but for all his kindness and attentiveness, most of the time it just kept her teetering on the line between sanity and insanity.

His kindness didn't do any erasing. It just smothered. Smothered the memories with a heavy paste of lovely words and gentle actions, and those memories always managed to break free, roaring at her until her ears seemed to bleed and her vision became spotty and her body began to shake.

First, there was her. It always started that way. The universe would accept no other order. There was Bellatrix, too, whose laugh was threaded with a sort of venom that only the maliciously insane could attain. It was high-pitched and strained, thin and hoarse like putty that had been stretched too far but was too stubborn to snap, and it always made a regular appearance in the dreams. The mad cackle was always followed by the pain. Oh, that pain, the pain that jabbed down her body as if she were being shaken in a jar full of knives, and then drenched with a cauldron of boiling water, and then stabbed in the back over and over again, and then set on fire, and then laid out to toss and turn and scream in a pit of black, smoldering coals. That pain began to pick at her sanity, cracking it open like a hardened scab, and Bellatrix watched, bright eyes and screams of laughter that writhed like snakes from her mouth.

Second, it was her parents. Their eyes, wide and afraid, their skin a terrified shade of grey, their hands shaking in inconsolable fear while they asked her not to worry, and that everything would be fine. _Parents aren't supposed to lie to their children._ And then there was a pain even worse than the first. There was the malevolent glint in Macnair's eyes as he brandished his wand and tapped the chains that held the last of her family in place. Then, the fire that ignited the cold metal, fueled by his magic and their fear, and the odor that permeated the air, the smell of burning metal, and then burning flesh. The cries that threw themselves from her parent's mouths despite their effort to keep calm and when they fell to their knees, sobbing and shrieking in agony as they Death Eaters watched on, laughing. And Lucius Malfoy stood behind her, holding her arms behind her back, and she was forced to watch, watch her parents being burned alive. She could feel herself losing it, could feel herself slipping away, could feel sanity drifting farther from her.

And finally, there was Ron. Poor, sweet Ron, whose lovely face was dappled with those dark freckles and whose nose was charmingly crooked. Ron, whose hair blazed like candle-light in the sun and whose smile could make her heart stop in its tracks. Ron, who once told her that she was beautiful, and that he would love her forever. Ron, whose tortured, agonized screams resounded through Malfoy Manor as Bellatrix drew a thin dagger oh-so-slowly across his exposed chest and face and arms. She could remember every detail from that night. The half-light that filtered through dark, heavy curtains. The dust on the candelabras that lined the tables in the room. The blood on the white of the table cloths that promised unimaginable horrors. She could picture, painfully clearly, Ron being forced back against the floor, spread-eagle, shirt slashed to tatters around him as Bellatrix tortured him and treated each slow slash with a wicked, torpid kiss, the mad witch's lips hexed so that they burned his skin and blood. Her name—_Hermione!_—the last word he ever uttered, crawling slowly from between his bloody lips, and his gaze, holding her own, his crystal-blue eyes intense and sad and gorgeous and powerful all at the same time.

And finally, her sanity, stretched so thin that a mere flick would completely destroy it.

There was nothing left for her, it seemed. Food stopped becoming necessary. Her sleep was broken by nightmares and memories that were best left hidden. She would find herself screaming at herself, at God, at Lord Voldemort, at anyone who she thought would listen to her, screaming at the unfairness, the unjustness of it all, how it all sickened her, how she couldn't stand it. Other times, she would lay still for days on end, unable to move a muscle or talk for fear of finally shattering into a million pieces.

Occasionally, she would rifle through her medicine cabinet, searching for left-over potions and elixirs that would kill her with just the right amount. Sometimes Harry would find her on her bed, staring blankly at a razor blade she held cupped in her hand. Once, he recovered a noose made of dental floss under her bed. But she could never bring herself to do it, to sever what little ties she had with the world.

Later, after she'd convinced him that she no longer wanted to kill herself for the umpteenth time, Harry would say, _You're a survivor. _He would make her look at him, grabbing her chin gently to force their eyes to meet, and murmur, _You're a survivor, Hermione, and you should be proud. _

And then she would be silent for quite a while. But just as Harry would stand up from the bed and make to leave the room, she would say, _How can I be proud? All I've done is suffered, and watched others suffer. I am not proud, Harry. I am breakable. I am broken. And that's all I'll ever be._

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><p><strong>AN:**

So... this is my 3RD attempt to write this story, and this time I THINK I'VE REALLY GOTTEN IT! If you're confused on what exactly I'm doing to it because this chapter doesn't look all that different from its original counterpart, I've added a lot of stuff to the later chapters, but not all that much to this one. I apologize to all the lovely people who are sitting there on their computers, having already alerted it, and are just waiting for me to actually get farther instead of stepping back. I WILL FINISH IT THIS TIME. Thanks to everyone who favourites, alerts, reviews... I LOVE YOU ALL, you make my day :)

Thanks for all your patience and happy reading!  
><em>~Gen <em>


	2. We Are Broken

**We Are Broken  
><strong>_"Lock the doors.  
><em>_'Cause I'd like to capture this voice."  
><em>Paramore

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><p><span>January 6th, 2002<span>

There was a knock on the door. Three sharp _raps_ that just barely roused Hermione from her sleep in the other room. A most curious thing, for Harry always had a key, and hardly ever knocked upon entering her flat.

She awoke, stepping out of bed for the first time in two days, and immediately fell to her knees, legs too weak to support the rest of her body. "Just a second," she whispered, despite knowing no one would be able to hear her on the other side of the door. Her voice was cracked and scratched by the screams she'd let loose the night before from the nightmares. Painstakingly slow, she crawled past the bedroom door, across the sitting area (which wasn't decaying only by Harry's weekly cleaning spells) and reached up to unlock the door.

Backing away, Hermione looked up to catch a glimpse of her visitor.

"Malfoy," she whispered, her mouth forming a little "O" of surprise when she saw who had come knocking at her door so early that morning. She wasn't sure whether to feel angry or surprised or excited. Either way, she didn't have to decide. Numb had been her only option for some time now.

"Granger!" he exclaimed, taking in her appearance. Her before-creamy-coloured skin was a sickly, ashy shade of grey, emphasized by the dark rings that hung under her eyes from countless hours of nightmare-induced insomnia. The brunette's hair lay limp and matted against her head, not at all like the soft, wild curls he remembered, and her clothes—a jumper and a pair of sleep-shorts—hung off her body and stank of sleep. But most obviously changed were her eyes, which were now blank and dull instead of vibrant and so full of life. "What the hell are you doing on the floor?"

Hermione painstakingly raised her arms in the air. "Help please?" she asked instead of answering, her voice nearly inaudible. It was unnaturally quiet for the before-outspoken young witch, and Draco became lost in the wretchedness of it before he responded, reaching down to take her thing, bony fingers in his hands and pulling her to her feet. She wobbled for a minute, but the former Slytherin quickly righted her, helping her to regain balance.

"Why are you here?" she asked, fingers still gripping his fingers to prevent herself from falling back to the floor.

"Potter sent me," he muttered. It was strange. The only voice she'd heard for days and days, except for Harry's. "He says you should have someone with you. Obviously, he actually knows what he's talking about for once." He didn't meet Hermione's eyes, looking away from the brunette as if her very visage hurt to see.

She nodded, ignoring the jab to Harry, letting go of his hands and stumbling towards the kitchen. She reached for a pitcher of water from the fridge and then two glasses from the cupboard. The effort of it made her arms ache. "Staying all day?" Hermione inquired as she heard the blonde hang up his jacket on the long-neglected coat rack.

Draco shrugged, taking a seat on the stool at the island, ignoring the fine layer of dust that would coat his backside when he stood up, resting his elbows on the cool granite with shoulders hunched thoughtfully.

When he spoke, it sent shivers down Hermione's spine. It was music. It hurt her ears. And made her cry. _Deep breaths_. "I suppose so. Until Potter can come back, I guess." His eyes scanned the room. "Nice place you've got here."

The former Gryffindor couldn't tell whether he was mocking her or not, knowing that her flat really was bare-border-on-ugly. She sipped her water, letting it brush her tongue before she set the cup back in front of her. She pushed the other glass towards Draco.

He took it in one hand and raised it in a kind of toast before taking a long sip while she stared at him, silently observing. He was wearing a nice white button-down shirt that reminded her of their days at Hogwarts, along with wrinkle-free slacks and expensive yet sensible shoes. His hair was nowhere near that slimy perfection he'd strived for at school, and instead lay tousled dashingly across his head. And even during a bloody _war_, he still smelled like that expensive cologne that he tried to deny came from muggle stores. It was clean, not too heavy, and settled nicely in her nostrils. She did not comment on any of this, though, choosing to take another sip of her water.

"So, what does a Hermione Granger do on a daily basis?" he asked, lifting his head to meet her eyes. His mouth flickered into a genuine-looking half-smile. She couldn't bring herself to reciprocate. She was afraid it would hurt.

"I sleep. Maybe I'll read, go for a walk with Harry." It was the most she'd said at one time in weeks.

The blonde looked a bit flustered. She didn't exactly give him a lot to work with, and both of them knew it. "Do you want to go for a walk?"

She pointed to her water. _Not finished,_ the gesture said.

"Okay, later then," he said, a trace of arrogance slipped into his tone. "I'll take you to that park I passed on the way here." His suggestion, mundane—his voice, a symphony.

Hermione nodded slowly and reached for her water. She didn't mention the fact that the last time she'd walked outside her flat was weeks ago.

After she drained the glass (which took more than ten minutes), and then washed the cups (even though all they'd had was water), and then got dressed (she was still only wearing the jumper and the sleep shorts), and then found her wand (she hadn't touched it in two and a half weeks), and then locked up the door (the keys seemed to have disappeared), Draco nearly dragged her from the flat, looping a strong, determined arm around her thin, nearly-numb one and led her to the park a few blocks down the street.

"It's cold," she commented, shoulders bunched as if making herself as small as possible would help her to be warm. Her steps were slowly getting steadier as she got used to using her feet again.

"Well, what did you expect?" Draco said, laughing loudly.

"Heat," she replied shortly.

He stared at her, eyebrow cocked. "You know its January, right Granger?"

She looked away.

"How long has it been then?" he asked, voice softer.

"Seven months." And then she stared at the ground, more-than-hinting that she didn't want to say anything else.

Thankfully, he stayed quiet, choosing to gaze out onto the street without commenting. The silence that followed was neither awkward nor quite peaceful. However, this silence was swiftly broken as they entered the park, where they passed less people and were sheltered by tall, broad trees whose leaves painted the sidewalk green.

"Potter said you were getting better," Draco murmured, the sarcastic edge gone from his voice. "That you don't have as many nightmares. That you don't wake up… distressed as much anymore."

Hermione didn't answer him.

"That's good, isn't it?" He glanced at her sideways, checking her reaction. "Learning to let go… not to forget, but to stop…" he trailed off as he realized the brunette wasn't listening.

"Things are looking good, at the Order, too," he continued, latching onto the top of the Order of the Phoenix when he noticed that her wellbeing would get him nowhere. "They caught Carrow last week. Alecto, I think—I wasn't there at the time, though I wish I was. Potter insisted sending me… elsewhere. Bloody wanker. Anyway, Carrow's back in Azkaban now, though she's not guarded by dementors. We have Order members there, who don't mind the gloom, and who are good with the Patronus charm. I haven't quite gotten it yet," Draco admitted, looking sheepish. "All I can get are little wisps. Potter once told me that you had trouble with it, too. But you managed to get a corporeal one a few times, right?"

She blinked, and Draco took it for a "yes". "Maybe we could practice every once in a while. You know, work together, get better at it, enough to fight dementors for the Order or something… I'm curious to see what mine would be."

Meanwhile, Hermione's steps slowed. Her leg muscles seemed to have refused to continue working. Draco didn't see her fall, only heard the _thud_ as she slid to the ground in a heap of bones and clothes.

"Granger? _Granger?_" he said, whirling around to look down at her, now curled in a foetal-position on the sidewalk. He immediately dove to the ground, crouching beside her and peering into her face to check she was conscious. She was, but barely.

"Are you okay?" he demanded, pulling her head off the ground and checking for blood.

"Fine…" Hermione mumbled. "Elbows…"

Draco reached for her arms, carefully pushing up her jumper sleeves. A thin layer of skin hung from her right elbow, an already dark-purple bruise criss-crossed by little scraps on the other. Without hesitation, the blonde pulled out his wand and gently tapped each elbow, the little injuries disappearing with a slow, comforting wave of heat. Then, without being asked, he scooped her up, holding her as if she were five and not twenty one, and looped her arms around his neck, latching them together so she held on.

With a quick flick of his wand, they apparated back to the hallway outside her flat. "_The key, Granger,_" he said.

"Jacket pocket," she replied into his shoulder, and after much squirming he emerged from her pocket with the key, twisting it in the lock and kicking the door open.

"Don't move," Draco said as he set her gently on the couch. _As if I could anyway_. "Do you have any food in the fridge?"

"Maybe…" she murmured vaguely.

The blonde made his way to the kitchen, pulling open the door and finding nothing but spoilt milk, an apple, and what almost looked like ham but could quite possibly have been a hunk of moss from the Forbidden Forest.

He went to the cupboards next, rifling through the near-empty shelves until he found a pot, the lid, and a small little can of tomato soup. "'Soup sound good, Granger?" he called into the sitting area.

He took the muffled grunt as an affirmation of approval.

Hermione couldn't help but feel a tiny bit surprised when, ten minutes later, Draco set down a steaming mug of tomato soup on the coffee table in front of her. Who knew he actually knew how to use a stove without burning down the entire building? She supposed it probably would have been safer if she watched him, just to make sure nothing would happen, and then wondered who had taught him.

"Sit up slowly, else you'll get dizzy," he warned, taking the seat opposite her with his own, marginally smaller mug.

Hermione ignored him, immediately regretting it as black spots danced in her vision and the room spun around her. Draco snickered. "Told you so." She ignored him again, reaching to cup the mug in both hands. She stared at the thick, ruddy soup inside, not sure if she wanted to take a sip or not. Finally, she lifted it to her lips and took a long, hard draught, scalding her tongue in the process.

"Merlin," the blonde commented. "You're going to incinerate all your tongue. When was the last time you ate something?"

"What day is it?"

"Wednesday."

"…two and a half days, then."

He stared at her, dumbfounded. "No wonder you collapsed! You're practically starving yourself."

Hermione shrugged.

"That's the last thing I need; I can just imagine the headline in the Prophet: _'War Hero dies of Starvation under Care of Deatheater's Son.' _Oh, yeah, that'll go over well. You're going to have to eat now, or Potter—and the rest of the world—will kill me. Promise me you'll eat at least twice a day, whether anyone's here or not."

"I promise," she mumbled.

"Good."

They finished the soup in silence, and Hermione curled up on the couch, eyes drifting close to the sound of running water and Draco washing their dishes. She was lulled to sleep by the feeling of a warm blanket being curled around her body.

' ' '

June 16th, 2001

_Who's left to wait for?_

_Just one, Seamus._

_Let me guess—_

_Yep._

_I still can't believe—_

_Shhh. She doesn't know yet._

_How?_

_I haven't really gotten to telling her._

_What do you mean?_

_"I haven't really gotten to telling her."_

_Honestly, Harry, how do you think she's going to react?_

_She's been in a quiet mood for the past few days. Not too much screaming. I think she can handle it._

_Why haven't you told her?_

_She didn't need to know. _

_Yeah, okay. What happened to Gryffindor bravery?_

_It's better this way._

_You're an awful liar. _

_I know, Seamus._

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><p><strong>AN:_  
><em>**

Tada! Hope that'll hold you over if I'm late...

Thanks for reading and hope you've enjoyed so far! Oh, and if you are so kind as to review, please don't comment on Draco's OOC-ness. I've been working with that, and trust me, it wasn't nearly as bad as it was in the first draft. But there is a cause for it! All shall be revealed in due time, my lovelies... :)

Thanks for reading (again) and reviews make my day! ~Gen


	3. Halo

**Halo  
><strong>_"Hit me like a ray of sun,  
>burning through my darkest night."<br>_Beyoncé

* * *

><p><span>June 16th, 2001<span>

_"Good evening, Malfoy."_

_Hermione looked up from the table. Before, she'd been sitting with her legs drawn up to her chest, shins resting against the table, arms draped across her knees and eyes trained on the expanse of dark wood before her. She interrupted her inspection of the grain to scrutinize the blonde standing at the doorway. _

_His hair blinded her. The colour was dazzling—one of the few bright things she'd seen since returning to the Order. Or perhaps one of the few bright things she'd _allowed_ herself to see. _

_"Malfoy," Hermione acknowledged, almost just a slight rustle of sound. She probably should have been angry, incensed, at the very least curious, but she couldn't seem to call up the emotions, forget the actions that usually followed with them. He stared back at her, the expression in his pointed face unreadable, as he sat down on the other side of Ginny Weasley, who did not look particularly happy with the seating arrangement. _

_Throughout the meeting, she'd expected sharp jibes. Sarcasm. Bantering. Shouts. Arguments. Sneers. Instead, he was quiet. Calm. Attentive. His voice was a smooth, soothing tenor—when he wasn't being a complete ass. It put her to sleep._

_And when she woke up on the floor, hands twisted into claws and mouth malformed to fit the horrible screams fighting their way into the air, he was leaning over her, his pale hair a halo against the dark gloom of the meeting room. His face glowed with the radiance of his white-blonde tresses, and his eyes burned bright like quicksilver. His slender, soft hand cupped her cheek, so gentle and so sweet, she'd've cried if she could have. _

_But she couldn't, so she stood up, walked out. And didn't see the Slytherin for quite some time._

_' ' '  
><em>

Draco came by the next day. And the next. And the next. For the week. Then two, three, going on four. All throughout that time Hermione caught no sight of Harry Potter. It was Draco woke her up in the morning with his knocking, the three sharp _taps _that the brunette either anticipated or dreaded depending on her mood the night before. It was Draco who was cooking her meals now, making her eat them with the weight of her promise when she refused. It was Draco who took her for walks along the park to keep her strength up, and it was Draco who read to her, curled up on the sofa opposite her, who filled her ears with the beautiful music, the slow, steady, cautious sonata that was his careful tenor voice, who recaptured her love of words and books and stories. His voice, which had been so easy to tell by the dull blade of sarcasm, gradually softened, day by day, until the sardonic edge was all but non-existent.

And it continued on like this.

Some days were good. Some days they would have long conversations, most of the talking on Draco's part, but still conversations. Hermione slowly began speaking again, giving more-than-two-word responses and presenting her opinion on matters such as her preference for lunch that day. Some days she could walk around the park four, five, six times, or read a chapter by herself, or help Draco cook or wash the dishes after their little meals together. Some days she could even make her bed.

But some days were bad. Some days he had to wait for an hour in the hallway outside her flat until Hermione finally found the will to drag herself out of the bedroom and to the door. Some days she clung to the door when he tried to take her for a walk, as if the outing would cost her her very life. Some days during their short meals, she would take small bites, maybe four or five, before proclaiming herself finished and tired and needing a nap.

Some days she awoke from said naps stretching and feeling refreshed and new, the nightmares she had during her sleep quickly forgotten as she got up quickly to take a shower. Some days she awoke from her naps crying, or screaming, or scratching long slashes down her arms and face with her nails, her skin red and weeping by the time Draco woke her up and calmed her down enough to pull her hands away. Some days she wouldn't sleep at all, instead lying in bed and staring hopelessly at the ceiling, tears trickling timidly from the corners of her eyes, the visions of her nightmares appearing to be tattooed on the inside of her eyelids.

It all varied. It was random, unpredictable, in a scary, depressing way, but Draco seemed to put up with it all, just like Harry had. It surprised Hermione, considering their past, but she didn't complain or question it. She never wondered what caused the change, or his reasons behind it. Occasionally she would inquire where Harry was, to which she was always supplied with the reply, "he's out on Order business."

Only a few things stayed constant in her new life. One was Draco. Another was her nightmares, thought whether she remembered them upon waking or not was just as random as everything else. And finally, the fact that she never, ever let in a smile.

It would hurt too much.

' ' '

May 16th, 2001

_What do you think?_

_"What do I_ _think?" What do you mean by that, Mr Potter?_

_I mean, Healer Zera, what do you think about Hermione? Will she be alright?_

_Physically? Oh, yes. Miss Granger will come out quite alright. Perhaps a few scars. Not if we can get these to heal faster. _

_Though…_

_Though mentally, emotionally… I can't be sure. We shall have to wait until she wakes up until we can make a full analysis. _

_But by what she's been through, what she's seen; can you give your own professional opinion on this?_

_I'm no expert with the workings of the human mind, Mr Potter. I'm afraid you're asking the wrong Healer. But based on what I have seen in the past, I can say almost positively that Miss Granger will _not_ be anywhere _close_ to the fate that had befallen, say, the Longbottoms._

_So she'll be fine?_

_I highly doubt she'll be completely fine. She'll definitely have some sort of mental scarring. Maybe mood swings. Loss of appetite. Fits of terror and flashbacks. Perhaps even an emotional apathy. Suicidal tendencies are a possibility, as well, so I would watch out for her. You never know with torture—any kind—really._

_And what about the curse?_

_Which one?_

_The one Bellatrix put on her right before she was rescued. For her sleeping. _

_Oh, yes. I'm afraid we can't cure that without completely damaging her mind and memory forever. Miss Granger will have to live with those nightmares permanently. She'll never be able to escape them. _

_There isn't any sort of cure? Any way of blocking them from her mind?_

_Like I said, not without completely ruining her beyond repair. …Though there is…_

_Yes?_

_Ahem… Well… Avada Kedavra was never supposed to be avoidable, as you know, Mr Potter. But I've heard rumours… A very old kind of magic, wasn't it, which saved you that night so many years ago?_

_Mhm. Professor Dumbledore once told me it was love. _

_Yes, I have heard rumours on that as well…Call me mad, but perhaps… if Miss Granger fell in love again… perhaps it would lift Madam Lestrange's curse. Don't take this too seriously, though, it's just a theory, and not a very good one at that. But maybe it's something she can cling on to, some sort of hope. Which, I'm sure you know, is something she will need very desperately in the next few weeks…_

' ' '

February 1st, 2002

"Malfoy, what do you do for a living?"

He looked up from the stove in surprise. It had been a good day so far. Hermione had eaten all of her lunch and read a chapter from their current novel, _Through the Looking Glass_. Draco was getting used to muggle fiction, which was much stranger and more imaginative than wizarding fiction. Currently, she was curled up on the couch across from him while he read the _Daily Prophet_, which had just managed to continue running in the past few months of war. "What do I do for a living?" he parroted.

"Mm."

"I don't actually have a job right now. It's sort of hard to get one during a war, you know."

Hermione nodded, looking distracted as she ran her fingers over the stitching on the side of her pillow. "Yes, I suppose that was a stupid question."

"No, of course not," Draco nearly scoffed. The last thing he wanted to do was discourage her from asking questions or talking at all, really. They'd had exchanges like this before, always short, but on similar topics, like their favourite book or song or, once, Quidditch. But this was the first time Hermione herself had ever initiated one of their brief conversations.

"Well… if you _could_, what do you think you would do?"

Again, he was surprised. It wasn't something he thought about often. Maybe a few times, when he was younger. When war didn't seem like such a frighteningly near idea.

"Working with Potions would be okay. Maybe as a Healer, or perhaps some freelance work. My grades back at school weren't _only _dependent on constant butt-kissery, I'm actually quite good with a cauldron." Hermione didn't seem to catch the joke, and if she did, she didn't smile.

"How about you?"

She looked thoughtful as she rubbed her eyes. "Teaching would have been nice. Arithmancy… or charms… or even transfiguration…"

"I could see you teaching. You sure have the patience for it."

She yawned loudly, then shrugged. "I think my students would grow tired of me, eventually."

Draco laughed. "I highly doubt that, Granger. You're quite entertaining. And would probably make lessons interesting, what with all the crazy stuff you've got flying around that abnormally large brain of yours," he said, though not unkindly. "I can just imagine the scores of little first years, their first crush on Professor Granger…" But he trailed off with a smile as he realized the former Gryffindor was fast asleep.

' ' '

May 18th, 2001

_"Malfoy." _

_"Potter."_

_They pair were currently in a meeting room in a muggle hotel that Harry had rented for the short time of their meeting. It was a cool June night, and both had forgone their robes in favour of appropriately muggle blazers. _

_"Your wand," the brunette said, and Draco tossed the rod of hawthorn into Harry's swift hands. He tucked it away carefully into his jacket pocket—both knew the level of trust the Malfoy heir had shown by surrendering his wand._

_"Shut the door on your way in, please," he requested politely._

_The blonde sneered as he kicked it shut. "Of course, how could I forget? I mean, what with this meeting being all secret and whatnot, the idea of closing the door completely slipped my mind."_

_"Don't start like that, Malfoy," Harry implored, looking tired. "It's not been an easy day." _

_Draco had missed either the weariness in his expression and tone or he chose to ignore it, for his next words were, "I apologize for any inconvenience I managed to force upon you, O Great One."_

_Harry's eyes flashed suddenly and dangerously. "You can quit your shit or fuck off. I'm not dealing with you right now if you're going to be like this," he spit out through clenched teeth._

_"Alright, alright," the former Slytherin relented, holding his hands up and taking a seat at the table in front of Harry. "Merlin, Potter, what's got _your _panties in a twist?"_

_He was silent for a moment before opening his mouth to answer. Completely deadpan, he replied: "Ron was found dead two days ago and Hermione has been in a comatose state since them." _

_The mocking smirk quickly slid off the blonde's haughty face, and though sympathy did not replace the sarcastic look, he sobered considerably. "Then I'll try… to behave."_

_"Thank you, Malfoy," Harry said. "Now, Dumbledore told me you were interested in joining the Order."_

_"Yes," Draco said quietly, his bravado disappearing as they slipped into talk of the war. He had proclaimed himself neutral since the start of the fighting, risking his own life as he stalled for time, trying to make the right decision. He was lucky—Voldemort had found it quite amusing and wrote it off as a joke, choosing not to coerce him into become a Deatheater or torturing him into submission, instead letting the youngest Malfoy "take his time" deciding and casting a _Legimens _charm every time they met as an extra precaution._

_"Though I thought I was coming to meet ol' _Dumbledore_ until two days ago. Who put a twenty-year-old in charge of meeting a possible enemy in the dark of night?"_

_"Dumbledore," Harry replied simply. "We're short-staffed as of late. Initially, Moody volunteered, but no one in the Order thought that would be a good idea considering your, ahem, past experience with him." The former Gryffindor allowed himself a twitch of his lips. _

_Draco simply sneered in response. "That wasn't even the real Moody."_

_The other man shrugged. "We just didn't want to you to leave the meeting with a tail, or any other kind of magical scarring."_

_Draco scoffed. "He wouldn't dare."_

_"He would dare—but I digress," Harry said. "We're here to talk about you joining the Order. You understand, Malfoy, that we offer you as much protection as we can afford from Lord Voldemort and the Deatheaters, but you have to commit to the cause as dedicatedly as everyone else. It will take you a long time to build up trust, as well, considering your past and your family. Also, Dumbledore will no doubt request that you give us any information you've managed to find over the years. And when you commit to the Order, you can't just 'stop' or 'go back'. This is a one-time thing, and you will never be able to back out. The Unbreakable Vow is optional, of course, Dumbledore would never allow me to coerce you into it, but you will never get full privileges, or even half-privileges, if you don't swear by it."_

_"You sound like a right diplomat, Potter. Almost as good as Granger would've been."_

_"Yeah, well, war does things like that to you. So now that you've heard my speech, you're absolutely positive you want to join the Order?"_

_"Just a question."_

_"Make it quick, Malfoy, I've only got another ten minutes to be back at Headquarters."_

_"What do you think about this?"_

_"How do you mean?"_

_"Me joining the Order. Does it boil your blood, perhaps? Or are you thankful that the one and only Draco Malfoy is committing himself to your cause?"_

_"A little bit of both, I guess," Harry said, surprisingly honest. "It took me a while to get used to the idea, since you contacted Dumbledore in the first place. But I think I've come to accept it. That is, if you really are being serious; not just taking a piss and completely wasting our time and resources."_

_"No, no, this is totally serious, I assure you."_

_"Good. Then Dumbledore will arrange another meeting with you soon. Until then, sit tight."_

_"Well then what was the purpose of this meeting?" Draco said, somewhat piqued. _

_"To see if you would show up. To see if you were lying. If you trusted me, which you do to some extent, seeing as I've got your wand right now. To tell you what we'll expect of you." Harry took the blonde's wand from his pocket and tossed it back to him. "But before you leave…"_

_"Yeah?" Draco said as he stood from his chair._

_"I was wondering… What made you want to join the Order?"_

_He stared at Harry, his expression unreadable. Then, he was just as surprisingly honest as Harry had been. "Well, it was a combination of factors, as most things are. But I think the convincing point for me was… well, let's just say it was the only way to talk a certain someone."_

_"Who?"_

_"That, Potter, is confidential information. Maybe I ought to ask for an Unbreakable Vow from you for that one."_

_Harry actually smiled a bit. "Get out of here, Malfoy. Expect Dumbledore's owl in a few days."_

_He saluted smartly and turned on his heel, and the Boy Who Lived watched him go, already making guesses on whom this _certain someone _could be._

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

See, toldja I had a lot more of these flashback things :)

So not only am I not late, I am also early! It's mad exciting! For me, at least... ^_^ I'm getting super-excited about this story, I've gotten really far in it and it's shaping up quite nicely... I think I'm gonna make it to the end this time... XD

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, it's the longest one yet breaking 3,000 words so hopefully that made some people happy... And thank you to all 32 of my lovely alerters, as well as everyone who reviewed and favourited!


	4. I Saw

**I Saw  
><strong>"_With the look in your eyes,  
><em>_ike you could save me."  
><em>Matt Nathanson

* * *

><p><span>February 3rd, 2002<span>

"Granger?"

"Mm."

"…Have you ever tried to kill yourself?"

She rolled over on the bed. Yesterday was a bad day. Every time she closed her eyes, visions appeared against her eyelids, images of her parent's torture and death, traces of pain left over from the scars that formed _beneath _her skin, Ron's screams of agony as they rebounded about the Manor. In the end, she ended up leaving the door unlocked when Draco left, not sure if she would be able to open the door for him the next morning. He'd reprimanded it for her after he came in, telling her that Deatheaters could have gotten around the charms on the building and barged straight through the door, but his voice was weak and she'd ignored him, curling her arms around her pillow and trying not to blink for as long as possible. Eventually he gave up, sliding onto the bed beside her with hands crossed behind his head.

"Why do you ask?" Hermione said quietly.

"I've talked to a Healer about that curse Bellatrix put on you. I was just wondering."

She was quiet for a while. "A few times."

There was the sound of air whistling through teeth in a gasp. "But you never seriously…"

"Almost. A few times."

"Granger." She could tell by his tone that he wanted her to turn around. Reluctantly, she complied.

Draco was turned to face her on his side, silvery hair splayed across one of her pillows. He reached out and took both of her hands in his, skin hot against her own. She was suddenly quite aware of how dry her hands were. "Don't you ever try and kill yourself. Ever. Promise me you'll never kill yourself again."

The look in his eyes, inexplicably intense. They were the colour of mercury, and shone just as bright. Hermione found herself staring at them for a while before she found her voice. "I promise," she whispered.

"Good," he replied, but didn't let go of her hands for quite some time.

' ' '

June 16th, 2001

_Bloody hell. He just went up to her and pulled her into his bloody _lap. _Did you see that, Harry?_

_Of course I did. I'm not blind. _

_Well—_

_I know, Seamus. It was odd._

_Ha, that's an understatement. How can you sound so calm?_

_Because I sort of guessed already. _

_Guessed what?_

_That Malfoy…_

Fancied_ Hermione?_

_I guess you could say that. _

_How? The he _hated _her with all his guts. How could he ever consider—_

_I think… I think he needs her forgiveness or something._

_What? A _Malfoy_, asking for forgiveness?_

_I know. It's really strange. But he said something, that day I met him at that hotel. I think that's what he meant._

_Poor Ron is no doubt rolling in his grave right now. _

_No, Ron would understand, though it would take a long time. Hermione needs someone right now, and unfortunately, it's not me. _

_And you think it's _Malfoy?

_Anything's possible at this point, Seamus. _

_…_

_You know, I'm about as deaf as Potter is blind._

_So we've noticed, Malfoy._

' ' '

January 21st to February 5th, 2002

It started with the kitchen. In there, he made sure that she always had food. He stockpiled her fridge full of fresh cheese and eggs and milk every week or so, and filled her pantry with crisps and cereal and bread. Hermione didn't mind at first, but then he started bringing in the ice cream.

"What the hell is that for?" she said.

"You love ice cream, Granger," Draco had answered softly. "Mint-chocolate-chip."

"It's only going to go to waste. I'm not going to eat it," she told him stubbornly. "I refuse to."

He then sighed. "I can't make you do anything."

Draco also cleaned up the counters, made sure there was no dust lingering on their smooth surfaces, and wiped up the sink every time he cooked. She watched him the whole time, from the couch, eyes trained on his every move. Hermione couldn't remember if she ever put anything important in the multitude of drawers and cabinets that lined the kitchen area, but just in case, she watched him.

Next, he started on the family room. He began by taking all the blankets lying around the couches, which probably hadn't been cleaned in months and months, and took them all to the laundry-machines in the basement of the building. When he came back, they smelled fresh and new. One had been Ron's, and it no longer smelled like him when it came back.

She cut out his name on her cheek beside her nose with a razor that night.

Draco yelled at her when he came the next morning.

She didn't give a fuck.

It was obvious he was more scared than angry.

While she was taking her naps he alphabetized her books by author, dusting the shelves as he went, clearing away the cobwebs and killing all the spiders with his shoes. Draco hated the little buggers, too.

It reminded her so much of Ron, and it hurt so goddamn badly that she picked at the scabs on her face and refused Draco's healing spells, making sure she would get a scar. So every time she looked in the mirror, "Ron" would be staring back at her.

After that he worked on vacuuming, carefully avoiding anything other than the sofa and the carpet, just in case he managed to catch something else that would make her hurt herself again. Then he got to work on the coffee table, taking out the stains in the wood from when she'd place her glass on it and didn't care enough to use a coaster, cleaning it up quite nicely so that it shined when the sun rose every morning and the sunlight filtered through the window.

He did this all without magic, using his own hands or muggle technology. Perhaps he thought he was going to impress her, make her see that he didn't live by his old prejudice and wasn't a lazy, bigoted aristocrat anymore. Perhaps it worked.

But just a little.

' ' '

July 2001

_Ginny?_

_Mm?_

_Did I wake you up?_

_Only a little._

_I'm sorry I haven't come home too much. _

_It's okay. Hermione needs you._

_Not me. I'm not enough._

_Harry—_

_No, it's true. I need to find her someone else._

_No one loves her more than you do, excluding Ron, of course. _

_I don't think it's enough._

' ' '

February 6th, 2002

Every once in a while he would do something so utterly surprising, so utterly beautiful, that Hermione could do nothing but allow herself to feel happy.

And so it was on one strangely sunny day in late January. There were Draco's three raps on the door, and Hermione sat up, simply settled on the edge of her bed before she finally got to her feet and walked towards the former-Slytherin.

"Quick, Granger, I've got a surprise for you," was the call from the other side of the door.

A single brow rose high towards her forehead as she pulled open the door, and her confusion increased as she saw nothing was held in his hand. "What is it?"

"Not even going to let me in?" he said teasingly.

She quickly stepped aside, curiosity piqued. "Well?"

Draco reached into his pocket as Hermione took her seat on the couch. "For you."

He leaned towards her in a sort of bow and opened his fist, revealing a gorgeous, shiny black piano that was barely the size of his fingernail. She gaped at it, gaze soft. It really was a gorgeous piece, she couldn't imagine how much concentration it would have taken to have crafted this. "Where would you like it?"

The brunette shrugged. "The bookshelf?"

The blonde chuckled. "How about near the window there?"

She stared at him. "Right in the middle, on the floor?"

"Yep." Draco walked over towards the open stretch of floor and set the miniature grand in the direct centre. "Ready?"

"For what?"

"You'll see now…" And then he brandished his wand and tapped the top of the piano, stepping back quickly.

Right before their very eyes, the little model began to grow, faster and faster until with a slight _pop!_ it stopped, a full-size, gloriously gleaming grand piano.

Hermione gawked at it in awe.

"It's lovely, Malfoy," she breathed.

"Do you still know how to play?"

"I haven't… not since Hogwarts…"

"Would you like me to?"

She nodded slowly.

The former-Slytherin walked over the piano, sat down on the bench, and played.

' ' '

June 2001

_We never should have let him bring that damn piano in the house._

_It's really not that bad, Seamus. _

_You're not the one with his bedroom right above yours. He bangs on it all night, Harry, I don't understand how he calls that music._

_Well _I _think it's quite beautiful. _

_…No one asked you Ginny._

_You didn't have to._

_Shut it for a minute, you two. He's started again._

' ' '

February 10th, 2002

It was on a cold, rainy February night when things started to really change. The clock struck ten in the kitchen and yet Draco was still in the flat, having not yet left.

He didn't even ask, which probably would have pissed her off a lot more if she had felt like yelling at him that night. But seeing as that wasn't the case she let it go, climbed into bed, and closed her eyes, ignoring the dip in the mattress he made as he climbed in beside her, less than a foot apart. She could feel the heat of his body, pulsing steadily from his splayed form to her curled one.

It had been an okay day, better than most, but far from her best. When she her eyelids drooped to a close, she wasn't forced to relive those distressing events in Malfoy Manor, which was a welcome change from the past few days.

Sleep settled in slowly, embracing her like a long-lost friend, enveloping her in a foreign sort of warmth that she hadn't felt in weeks. Her mind was not empty, but at the same time it was not filled with memories and night-terrors that plagued her otherwise. For the first time since Ron's death, Hermione Granger had dreams, not nightmares.

And it started with a mirror. A beautiful mirror, tall and long, decorated with a heavy gold frame, dulled with age yet still as regal and powerful as it no-doubt looked in its youth. The surface of the glass was muddied with misty clouds and smudges—Hermione could not catch her reflection, nor did she think she was meant to. Not entirely, at least.

There was a slam of a door from behind her and she whipped around in alarm. Coming into the room was Draco Malfoy, looking quite obviously troubled. He seemed not to be able to see her, and Hermione did not attempt to make her presence known. She simply stepped out of the way when the former-Slytherin approached the mirror.

As he stood in front of it he mumbled under his breath, "_Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi,_" and she finally understood she was looking at the famous Mirror of Erised.

_I show not you face, but your heart's desire. _

_What will Malfoy see? _Hermione wondered. She knew that in real life she would never get a glimpse of his vision in the mirror—only her own—but her dream seemed to ignore this fact and she saw it anyway.

At first, it was just his reflection. His face, eyebrows drawn tight on his forehead and lips pursed impatiently. But slowly an image began to form on the cool surface of the mirror.

_What is that?_ she wondered. It appeared to be… a girl! A girl was walking up to him from behind. And it was… it was _her_! A much younger-looking, healthier Hermione Granger approached Mirror-Draco, her skin smooth and creamy, her cheeks slightly rosy, her eyes alight with life and vitality. But most-noticeably was the lack of scars stretching over her face and arms and neck, especially the one that spelt out _Ron _that was currently dashed across her cheek.

The Draco in the mirror turned around to face Mirror-Hermione, and he looked at her like she was the only thing that would possibly exist in the world, as if he would never care for anything but her as long as he lived, as if every breath he drew was simply to ensure a few more moments in her presence. It was a gorgeous look, as his eyes glowed and his face softened and you could practically hear his heart singing, its vibrato ringing out from underneath his chest. _Ron had looked at me like that, _Hermione thought. _As I had, him. _A wave of fresh pain and heartbreak crested over her heart.

A wide grin spread across Mirror-Draco's face to accompany the lovely look, and Mirror-Hermione smiled back, warm and gentle, and the two embraced, arms tight around each other as if their very lives depended on it. The blonde whispered something into her ear, and she giggled, craning her neck to whisper something back. The real Hermione could hear nothing in the mirror, but it was quite evident what her Erised-doppelganger had whispered.

_I love you_.

Three beautiful little words that she would never would ever have guessed would pass through her lips to Draco Malfoy's waiting ears.

_It's just a dream,_ Hermione thought to herself. _It's just a dream._ But that didn't stop the tears that emerged from the corner of her eyes and trailed down her cheeks, which doubled in number and size as Mirror-Hermione placed the chastest, simplest, most _beautiful _of kisses on Mirror-Draco's lips, which by then they seemed liable to break any moment, so wide was his grin.

But all the while, Dream-Draco, face screwed up in some unbearable agony and hands clenched to angst-ridden fists, fell to his knees in front of the mirror and slammed his palms against the glass, a web of cracks exploding from the point of contact. A sob emanated low and tortured from somewhere deep in his throat. And the last thing Hermione saw before she woke his blood, falling like raindrops against the fragmented mirror-glass.

"Good morning, Granger," Draco whispered.

Hermione opened her eyes to find him lying across the bed on his side, eyes trained on her and a small smile playing with the corner of his lips. She yawned and stretched, arms V'd and mouth open wide. "Good morning, Malfoy," she said, curling again.

"How was your sleep?"

She remembered her dream—it came back in a flash, raw and bright in her memory. For a brief moment she wondered if it had any truth in it, but doubted it instantly. There was no way… The world was lucky enough to get them away from the other's throat… she pushed the dream aside, back in the cavern of her brain-box, perhaps for a rainy day.

"Good," Hermione replied simply.

"Good," he said, and grinned, one so much like the one in her dream she nearly smiled back.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

Hello lovelies! I'm sorry for the delay, I promise I will never update with more than a week in between ever again. I'm quite a few chapters ahead and have a whopping _79_ pages of this story already written up, which is insane or me considering I've never written much more than a one-shot before. If you're a bit confused with the flashbacks, especially the conversations, please PM me and I'll be sure to explain who's talking to whom. This is sort of a bridge chapter, with no real important plot points, except for maybe the Erised bit at the end. I hope you enjoyed it anyway.

Thanks for reading this far and to my reviewers/alerters/favouritiers as well! I reply to every single reviewer but I barely ever get to say thanks to a favouritiers or alerters, so I apologize now for that. Also, I know it is definitely not your job as a reader to catch my mistakes, but if you see any spelling or conventions errors it would be lovely if you put it in a review or PM'd me! ~Gen


	5. Hope You Found It Now

**Hope You Found It Now  
><strong>"_The thin thread that held you,  
>how did it come untied?"<br>_Jason Walker

* * *

><p><span>October 17th, 2001<span>

_"How did you get it?" Draco said in wonder as he stared at the mirror, glancing at it up and down, marvelling at the gilded frame and gorgeous text spanning the top. _

_"Sorry, Malfoy, that's confidential," Harry said, one hand resting on his hip and one pinching the back of his neck. "But I can tell you it wasn't easy. No one was supposed to know where it was besides Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel, who died almost a decade ago. Dumbledore was nearly sure the Death Eaters had already gotten their hands on it._

_"Why are you showing it to me?"_

_"I figured you have as much right as anyone to see your most heartfelt desire. Most of the Order have already seen their reflections so don't worry, you're not usurping on anyone's rights to go before the Slytherin." He cracked a small smile at his joke. "What do you see?"_

_"I'm too nervous to look. Maybe later. Why, what do you see, Potter?"_

_He looked tense and hesitated, but answered quietly nonetheless. "My parents. Or, at least, that's what I saw when I was a kid. I haven't looked at it since."_

_"What do you think you would see if you looked again?"_

_"I see myself holding a pair of thick, woollen socks," Harry said with a wide grin, though Draco did not get the joke._

_' ' '  
><em>

February 14th, 2002

"Alright, Granger."

Hermione looked up from her current book as Draco stood up, reaching for his wand on the counter. "What?"

"We're going out today."

_"What?"_

"For lunch. I'm taking you out. Don't even try to argue this, you'll just lose for once. I've made up my mind. Grab your jumper, we're leaving in ten minutes."

She stared at him blankly. He couldn't be serious. "You're not serious."

"Ah, but I am. Come on, get moving."

She didn't get up.

The blonde walked up to her and offered two hands, beaming. _He has such a beautiful smile._ Hermione reluctantly took them, and he pulled her to her feet. "_Accio _jumper," he whispered, breath falling softly on her face, and it came ambling into the room, right into his hand.

"There. Now you owe me."

"You're lucky I'm getting out of the house."

"Yeah, right," he said. "You've been waiting for this offer for the past week. Your compliance was an inevitability."

"I don't even think you're using that word in the right context."

"That's irrelevant. Now let's go."

Draco walked her to a small café five minutes' walk away, getting halfway there before he insisted she let him carry her for the rest. Most of the time Hermione refused to admit she was ever as tired as she really was, and Draco nearly had to force her into letting him piggy-back her around just to prevent her from tripping over her own feet or falling to the ground. Despite the meals he'd been forcing her to have, she was still little more than skin and bones, and always napped at least once a day just to be able to function.

He let her stand as they entered the café, picking out a little secluded booth in the back where they could mention wizard stuff and not worry about any muggle overhearing.

"So what would you like, Granger? My treat."

"Water."

"Honestly. You've got to have more than that."

"Not really."

"Muffin it is."

"I'm not going to eat it."

"This is your lunch for the day. You've got to eat something. You promised me."

"Fine, fine. I'll eat the damn muffin."

"Good girl, Granger."

She supposed it probably would have been a good idea to go up with him, making sure he knew his way with muggle money and didn't completely expose them by making an idiot out of himself. But she couldn't be bothered to stand up again, and instead nestled into the corner between the booth and the wall, picking at the fly-away-strings on the sleeves of her jumper.

_Why has he chosen to take me out today, of all days? _Hermione silently wondered. _I was in a better mood yesterday, and probably will be by the weekend. _She shrugged it off, though, knowing that Draco liked doing spontaneous things just for the sake of spontaneity, like the day he brought in that piano or the time he put tabasco sauce in her chicken-noodle soup.

"So I ended up ignoring your request for water," Draco started as he got back to the booth, "and instead got you an iced tea. I thought you could do with the sugar and it looked like something you'd enjoy, what with the cinnamon and gingerbread and shit they put in it."

She stared at the monstrosity he handed to her—a tall, thin plastic cup probably dipped in red paint and decorated with hearts and frothing with red sprinkles dashed over the bubbles.

"I'm not touching that."

"Oh, come on," he whined, sitting down across from her. "It tastes good. I promise. I tried it on the way over here."

"And that's supposed to convince me? You've put your mouth on it."

"That's what makes it taste so good," Draco said with a wink.

She glared at the drink, as if testing its bravery and worthiness, and finally reached forward and pressed her lips to the rim, tilting it slightly.

"So… how is it?" he asked, eager as a toddler.

"…Adequate," Hermione replied reluctantly. Actually, it was quite delicious. A nice change from water, soup, and sandwiches, though she'd never admit it to him.

"Just adequate? Honestly, you're too hard to please."

"Some say that's a good thing. Never let low expectations drag you down," she said wisely.

"Quite true, quite true," he agreed, nodding.

"Just one question, though—what's with all the red?"

He looked at her funny. "You don't know?"

She stared at him blankly.

"Merlin, Granger. It's Valentine's Day."

"Oh. Oh." It felt very much like someone had dropped something rather heavy and hard on her chest.

"Yeah. You didn't know?" He was still smiling. Suddenly it didn't seem so beautiful anymore. God, how she wanted to hit him, slap him like she did that one time in third year to wipe that stupid smile off his face, but the brunette stopped herself, how terrible it would be of her to cause a scene when he'd been nice at least up to now.

"I don't really keep track of time anymore," Hermione said, feeling the burning tears gathering behind her eyes. She tried to will them away, but it wasn't happening.

Immediately he was sliding into the booth beside her. "Hey, hey, Granger, what's wrong?"

"It's nothing," she muttered stubbornly in reply. He wasn't helping.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking genuinely worried, which made her even angrier. Why was he taking away her right to be mad with him? "It was stupid of me, wasn't it, bringing it up? I don't know what I was thinking."

"Stop talking, Malfoy. I'm not crying in public."

"Then _you _talk to _me_. What's wrong?"

Hermione didn't answer, letting the first tear slide from the corner of her eye. She stared at him, searching his face for some sort of malice that would somehow justify her anger towards him, but finding none, simply let her head fall onto his shoulder in defeat. This was physically the closest they'd ever gotten, excluding the time he'd had to carry her that first day. It felt… it felt sort of nice. He was warmer and his shoulder wasn't nearly as bony as she expected.

_How can you be thinking about this? _she demanded of herself, incensed and disgusted. _On Valentine's Day, of all days?_

"Are you sure you don't want to talk?" he murmured. "I know this isn't over nothing."

She shook her head.

"Positive?"

She nodded, and he sighed. "Alright, then we'll go home."

' ' '

"I'll be heading out, okay?"

They were back at Hermione's flat, and she was sitting on the sofa, knees pulled up to her chest and cocooned in a thick quilt up to her chin. Draco was picking up his jacket and pulling it around his shoulders, grabbing his wand and stuffing it in his pocket.

The former-Gryffindor nodded stiffly to signal she'd heard and was okay with it.

"You sure?"

To her own surprise and his, Hermione found herself hesitating.

Draco quickly filled in the silence. "I can stay, if you'd like. You just have to ask."

She still stayed quiet, though her mouth was half-open with yet-to-be-said words. He waited there for a good minute, eyes intent on hers as if he was going to stare the answer from her.

"Please," Hermione finally whispered, and Draco relaxed, as if he had been waiting for her to say it all day. He shrugged off the jacket and placed his wand back on the counter, kicking off his shoes at the doorway.

"Do you want to talk now?" he asked, coming to sit down beside her on the couch.

"I don't know how."

He was quiet for a moment. "Well let's start like this. It'll be really hard, Granger, but I think it would help if you told me what you nightmare about."

She froze, her words caught in her throat. They were coming back now, the memories. Creeping into her consciousness and her vision, as dark and deadly dangerous as hate itself.

"Sometimes, they're of my parents dying. And sometimes they're me. But mostly, it's Ron."

"Ron…"

"Being tortured. And then killed."

"Oh."

Hermione nodded numbly. "I was in love with him, you know." She didn't see the look that passed over Draco's face as she spoke, like he couldn't decide whether to cry or scream. "More than anyone I'd ever known. He was supposed to be the end for me, I wasn't supposed to ever life without him."

She let out a short sob, followed by a hiccup. "And then I was forced to watch him die. He screamed, and I broke. And dammit, Malfoy, I don't know how I can be put back together. Nothing has worked, and I know about that stupid curse, and I can't get rid of it, and God it hurts so _fucking much._"

"Shh, shh," he said, sitting back against the couch and pulling her closer towards him so that she leaned against his shoulder. "I don't know what I can do to make you believe me, Hermione. But I'll say it, whether you choose to or not. I'm so, unbelievably _sorry_. I would do anything to turn back time, to still live in the Manor then so I could stop her from what she did to him, and to you." _Even if it meant you'd still love Weasley,_ were his unspoken words that seemed to hover in the air, unsure whether or not to slip into the former-Gryffindor's ear. In the end, it seemed they chose not.

"He proposed on Valentine's Day. The one before he died," she whispered, shoulders pulled close in a barricade, as if she didn't want the words to slip out after all. She continued anyway. "It was so utterly clichéd, but I was so happy that I couldn't bring myself to care…"

Draco stared down at her, shell-shocked. _They were engaged to be married. They were engaged to be married. _"Where do you keep the ring?" He cursed himself. The first thing out of his mouth, and it was probably the most impulsive, insensitive thing he could have said.

And to his horror, she started crying then, big fat tears slipping down her cheeks and rolling onto the blanket. "Bellatrix took it the night she captured us. The next day she killed him. I haven't seen it since."

_Nothing. In the café, she'd said she was crying over "nothing." I_t was as if Draco's heart had shattered into a million tiny pieces, as if it scattered across the ground and would never be able to be put back together, for this girl that lay beside him, this woman who had experienced the most unimaginable things and had somehow survived them.

' ' '

May 21st, 2001

_Harry forgot how much he hated hospitals. The harsh, chemical, sterile air that shoved itself up one's nose, the grim faces of the people in the lobby, and either the paralyzing, depressing stillness that haunted the corridors or the petrifying chaos that raged through them all contributed to the fact that hospitals placed in the top ten list of "Places Harry Potter Does Not Like"._

_St. Mungo's wasn't all that much better, in spite of the fact that it was a wizarding hospital. It didn't smell as bad, of course, and it was hardly ever calm there, much less depressingly calm—but it was infinitely more chaotic, the afflictions and illnesses so much more grotesque._

_He was reminded of this, this hate of hospitals as he walked down the hallway towards Hermione's room on the Fourth floor of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, and this hate increased tenfold with the knowledge that one of his best friends, one of the people he loved most in the entire world, was lying in one of those beds in one of those rooms in this damn hospital. _

_While his best friend and her fiancé now lay six feet under._

_Harry arrived at the door, which was closed. _Huh. Funny. They never lock this door. _He quickly knocked four times on the wood, brow furrowed. _

_A short, young Healer Trainee poked her head out of the crack she made with the door and the frame. _Trainee Honeysuckle,_ he remembered by her deep yellow hair and sweet voice. _

_"Oh, hello Mr Potter. Here for Miss Granger, I take it?"_

_"Yes."_

_"Would you mind terribly waiting outside for a few minutes? Her current visitor has asked to see Miss Granger alone…"_

Current visitor? _No one had said anything to Harry about going to see Hermione lately… Who—_

_"It's alright, Trainee Honeysuckle. Potter can come in."_

_That voice…_

_"You sure Mr Malfoy?"_

_Fucking hell. _

_"Yep."_

_Instantaneously, Harry was in the room, pushing past poor Trainee Honeysuckle and coming to stand before Draco Malfoy, kneeling at the side of Hermione's bed. All traces of camaraderie he might have felt towards the Slytherin since their last meeting disappeared. The slimy snake had no right to be seeing Hermione, who knew why he was here?_

_"What the hell are you doing here, Malfoy?" he demanded as the blonde stood up, gracefully brushing non-existent dust from his trousers._

_"I've come to see Granger, of course."_

_"I didn't know you were that concerned."_

_"Nor did I, you."_

_"That was a stupid thing to say."_

_"So was yours."_

_"I'm her best friend."_

_"Maybe I could be, too."_

_Harry sighed, reaching to pinch the back of his neck exasperatedly. "How did you get in here?"_

_"I got a note from Dumbledore. He signed and sealed it, saying I was safe to enter the ward and see her."_

Why didn't I hear of this? _he thought to himself, but quickly moved on. "Since when have you been so interested in Hermione?" he asked._

_"That's for me to know, and you to never find out. For now, at least," Draco answered ambiguously. _

_The brunette was quiet for a moment before he turned to face the girl in the hospital bed. Hermione was lying flat on her back, hands clasped near her waist and eyelids flickering in dream. She looked quite emaciated, her skin glinting with sweat and deathly pale. Bandages wrapped around her hand, her head, over the skin between her neck and shoulder, and who knew where else._

_"How is she?" Harry said quietly, done interrogating Draco for the moment._

_"She's healing," Trainee Honeysuckle answered, and the former-Gryffindor finally remembered that she was in the room the entire time. "Some of them will take longer than others, but she's making excellent progress."_

_Harry sighed in relief. "That's good. How are her nightmares?"_

_"Nightmares?" Draco said, looking up to meet Harry's eyes. _

_Instantly the was a flare of anger inside his chest. "_Your aunt_ put a curse on her." The blonde flinched at the mention of "his aunt". "You wouldn't happen to know of it, would you?" He'd meant it as a jab, but the former-Slytherin took the question seriously._

_"Bellatrix preferred physical scarring or insanity," he answered stiffly, perhaps offended by the apparently-low blow. "I haven't ever heard of her using a memory hex or whatever it was."_

_"Then we're screwed. The Healers here haven't seen it before. She ha—" he did not get to finish, as just then Hermione's mouth flew open in a blood-curdling shriek that claws through the air like a tortured animal. Her eyes flashed open, wide and unseeing as she sat up and began to tear determinedly at her bandages while still screaming hysterically. _

_"_Hurt me instead_!" she wailed over and over again._

_Trainee Honeysuckle jumped into action, much faster than Harry, who was still getting used to this, and Draco, who stared at Hermione, obviously horror-struck. The other man remembered the first time he'd seen Hermione like this, and momentarily pitied his old enemy for the shock. Before either of them could move, the young trainee had grabbed a potion and poured it into a small bottle. "You two, grab her arms and restrain her, please," she requested, unbelievably composed, and both rushed to either side of her, Harry taking Hermione's right arm and Draco taking her left. They held her fast as Honeysuckle walked up to the edge of the bed and gently eased the potion between her patient's lips, trying to prevent any of it from dripping down onto the blankets or her gown. _

_It did not take long for the brew to take effect, and soon Hermione was sleeping soundly again, soft, wheezy snores slipping from her mouth and nose. _

_Harry turned to Draco, eyes dark and face as still as if it was cut from stone. "That's what the curse does. She gets nightmares, and she screams. They haven't figured out how to break it yet."_

_The Slytherin was now backing towards the door. "How can you deal with this so calmly, Potter? She's wasting away, she's suffering so much…" His voice… it sounded so different from the usual arrogant drawl Harry was used to. It scared him. What was he playing at?_

_"You shouldn't care like this," Harry said, voice low and cautious. "You shouldn't be this worried for her. Why are you this worried for her?"_

_"It's none of your business," the blonde snapped, then thought better of it. "I've got to leave," the blonde said, quieter, friendlier. "Don't tell anyone I was here. I doubt they would take it half as well as you have."_

_"But I'm not taking it well at all—"_

_"Exactly. Goodbye, Potter. I'll see you next meeting."_

_And then he was gone._

_Harry looked to the bed, where his friend seemed to be sleeping soundly again. "Looks like you've got a Malfoy after you, Hermione. How about that?"_

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **

THE PLOT THICKENS! Mwahahahahaha...

Good God, the pacing of this one is terrible *facepalm* I sat staring at it for a good half-an-hour today, trying to figure out how to fix it, and came up with nothing. On top of that, I might not make it to the "less than a week" deadline I so foolhardily promised you all last A/N. If it makes you feel any better, though, it's because I've been focusing too much on a new one-shot that I'm really excited for because it has a rather dark Draco, whom I'm never attempted to write before.

Also, my favourite chapter in the entire story will be coming up very soon, so I'm pretty excited for me to get that to you all. Thanks once more for the lovely reviews and all the alerts and favourites! Each one makes me grin like an idiot :) Until next time (which will hopefully be in less than a week), ~Gen


	6. Meant to Live

**Meant to Live**  
>"<em>Hoping that he's meant for more than arguments<br>__and failed attempts to fly."  
><em>Switchfoot

* * *

><p><span>June 3<span>rd, 2001

_After just over a week and a half since his first visit, the hospital was a second home to Draco. He had met with Healer Zera and discussed the nature of Hermione's multiple injuries and curses, talked with Trainee Honeysuckle on her welfare and progress every visit. The former-Slytherin had become accustomed to the room's chilly white atmosphere, the uncomfortable chairs to either side of the bed, the windows that were placed awkwardly in comparison to every other part of the room. _

_Not even a month had passed since Hermione was first rescued from Malfoy Manor. Since then Draco had been doing menial work for the Order, cleaning and fixing things at Grimmauld Place, researching, and providing input at some meetings. He had not been allowed to join any of the rescue missions, reconnaissance ventures, or Death Eater head-quarter raids, but he hoped that would change soon. _

_Presently he was sitting beside Hermione on the floor, back against the bedside table and carefully watching her still-slumbering face as he talked about the events of the previous day._

"_Wood and Finnegan had this huge row yesterday on how to approach with the Borgin and Burkes raid, and it lasted a good half-hour at _least_. Potter was not happy at all with them; you could hear his shouting through the whole house. I haven't seen him so fired up in my life, I don't think, going on about how immature they were being and how much time they were wasting. And Finnegan was so pissed by the end that his face began to turn this bright tomato red that would have given Weasley a run for his money," he said with a short chuckle—a gesture in sharp contrast from the derisive laugh that would have followed the previous statement only a few years ago._

"_Honestly, he may be brilliant with pyrotechnics, but Finnegan's temper is just as fiery as the magic he specializes in. His tantrums are generally unproductive, obviously, but Merlin, are they funny to watch." _

_Draco became serious again as a thought crossed his mind. "I don't know whether I want you to wake up again or not, Granger," he said quietly. "You're missing so much that I'm sure you would be loath to missing if you were back to normal, but you seem so much safer in your own little bubble of sleep." He frowned and shook his head to clear it. "Merlin, what am I saying. You're probably going through hell in that over-sized skull of yours. Well, at least you're in no physical danger. Immediate physical danger, rather, considering Voldemort could break through St. Mungo's this weekend if he tried hard enough… Damn, you're not as safe as you'd think, are you Granger? Bloody war is messing things around. I mean, this is a fucking hospital for Merlin's sake. You deserve better than this. Hell, we all deserve better than this."_

_He glanced up at the brunette, searching for any indication that she was listening to a word he was saying. Finding none, he reached out towards her hand, which was curled over her pillow. After hesitating, Draco resolutely intertwined their fingers, noticing how dry and cold her palms were. The position was awkward and uncomfortable for him, seeing as he was on the floor and she was on the bed nearly a meter higher, but he was willing to trade the comfort for the feeling of her hand against his. _

_The blonde looked back towards Hermione, checking that his holding her hand had not stirred her from her sleep. Draco stilled when her eyelids flickered, but they did not open and he immediately relaxed._

"_I wonder what goes on in there sometimes," he admitted while absent-mindedly rubbing his thumb against hers. "Always have, even back when we were first years. _How could one girl hold so much _stuff_ inside that head? _I constantly wondered, more out of jealousy than pure curiosity, of course. I used to joke that you kept half your brains in your frizzy bush." he said, not unkindly. "Sometimes I still think it's true."_

"_I see you've built up a routine, Malfoy."_

_Draco looked up to see Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Couldn't-Die-For-His-Life, leaning against the doorway of the hospital room. Instantly he let his hand drop back to his lap, analysing the other man's face to search for some sort of clue as to what was running through his dark-haired head at the moment. Though he could not tell what the Harry was thinking, the former-Slytherin saw no hostility in his eyes and relaxed slightly. _

_Meeting his gaze resolutely, the blonde declared, "I don't know what you're talking about."_

"_You come here every day, don't you?"_

_The blonde did not answer, and that in itself was answer enough._

"Why?_"_

"_I'm a Malfoy, Potter. We don't share." Then Draco stood up and walked out the door. Harry did nothing to stop him, as he heard every word the blonde had exchanged with his best friend._

' ' '

February 21st, 2002

"Granger?" Draco whispered into the bedroom, squinting through the dark to try and find her bent form on the bed. She did not stir at the sound of her name and he grinned, knowing for certain that she was, in fact, asleep.

The blonde slowly closed the door to minimize the volume of sound that would accompany the action, then tiptoed gleefully to the piano in the living room. After using a charm to bring down the volume of each note, he pulled from the piano bench a few pages of half-filled sheet music covered with pencil scribbles. At the top of the first page, written in Draco's elegant handwriting were the words "_La Berceuse de la Princesse"_—The Princess's Lullabye.

Draco sat down at the piano and began to play.

' ' '

June 13th, 2001

_The strange witch was smiling—a kind, composed smile not unlike Professor McGonagall's that far from matched the pain that had seeped through Hermione's limbs over the past month. "Good morning, Miss Granger," she said. "How are you feeling?"_

_The former-Gryffindor stared blankly at the other woman, trying to process everything going on around her. The witch was middle-aged with an intelligent look about her, a clipboard held firmly in one hand. She wore robes of white. Her curly black hair was streaked with grey and pulled back away from her face in a braid._

"_Healer Zera, is she awake?" a voice asked loudly. It sounded so familiar, so familiar, but yet Hermione could not place it, which frustrated her immensely. It was not the pain, or the lingering feeling of terror, or the jumbled up thoughts inside her head that bothered the most at the moment. It was the not-knowing._

"_Where am I?" she croaked, and the Healer seemed startled yet delighted that the brunette was coherent enough to ask a question. Apparently this was new for her. _

"_St. Mungo's for Magical Maladies and Injuries. My name is Healer Zera. My trainee and I have been taking care of you for the past month or so."_

"_She's talking!" that voice exclaimed. _

"_Sh, Mr Malfoy. Give her a second to gain her bearings."_

"…_Malfoy?" Hermione whispered. Her first instinct was fear. The second was anger. No matter that they had barely exchanged a word in the last few months they had had at Hogwarts. No matter that there was no sign of him at the Manor all throughout the time she was tortured there. No matter that he had been at her bedside almost constantly since that first day—she didn't even have a memory of all those hours he spent with her. None of it mattered, he was Malfoy, he had called her a Mudblood so many times, his aunt had nearly killed her, _had_ killed Ron—_

_She lunged forward, pushing past Healer Zera with a frighteningly ferocious yowl and shoving her body into Draco's. They both fell onto the ground, Hermione on top, and from there she started to determinedly beat him in the chest, on the face, on the arms. Her blows had little effect though, seeing as she'd spent most of what little energy she had on getting off the bed, and the former-Slytherin made no move to defend himself, which confused her and fuelled her growing suspicions._

"_What are you doing here?" she screamed at him. "Get out, dammit, get him out!" _

_Healer Zera stepped forward, gently prying her patient away from the blonde beneath her, pulling her back towards the bed. "Calm down, please, Miss Granger, everything is alright—"_

"Why is he here_?" Hermione demanded, but Zera ignored her, instead saying: "I'm so, so sorry, Mr Malfoy, are you hurt—"_

"_No, no, of course not, I'm fine," Draco said with a wave of his hand, getting to his feet and straightening his suit. "I'll be going then, Healer Zera, thank you very much for your time."_

"_GET OUT!" Hermione yelled as she fought against the other witch, and without another word Draco ducked from the room. His face may have been a mask devoid of any emotion but it was just that—a mask, concealing the anguish tearing at him inside at the knowledge that the girl he may very well be falling in love with currently hated him with everything she had. _

_He was not yet aware that at that very moment Healer Zera was giving Hermione a calming draught which would soon put her to sleep, and that she would wake the next day with the memory of that morning already gone from her mind._

' ' '

March 1st, 2002

Hermione lay still in her bed, eyes wide yet unseeing. Draco slept beside the brunette, curled towards her with his hand a centimetre away from her waist and eyes shut tight, suggesting that he had reached for her in his sleep. The thought had made her cheeks burn and her heart beat faster, but she didn't move away. Four hours ago she had been thrust into consciousness, the cause unknown for quite some time until the coo-coo-clock in her living room softly hooted for three thirty in the morning.

"Happy birthday to you," Hermione sang-slash-whispered, the fat tears she had become accustomed to while thinking of Ron oddly absent, while the insistent tug at her heart and tightness in her throat very much present. "Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Ron. Happy birthday to you." She leaned forward to blow out imaginary candles for her dead friend and fiancé.

Then the former-Gryffindor's eyes drifted shut, and when she opened them for the second time she was gathered in Draco's arms, his breath still heavy and even with sleep.

' ' '

July 23rd, 2001

_The unsettling combination of thick air and thick dark that overtook that sticky July night resulted in the rather terrifying sensation of being suffocated, despite Draco's effort to ward off both with a fanning charm and a candle at his bedside. His sleep tended to be easily effected by the weather—if it was too hot, or cold, or humid, or snowing, insomnia was sure to follow. _

_So he was not jerked awake by the pounding on doors, nor the crash of Order members as they exploded into headquarters, nor the loud calls that followed shortly afterwards in urgent, anxious voices. He calmly reached for his wand, pulled on a shirt and socks, and then left the room towards the source of the chaos. _

"_Oi, MacMillan!" he shouted bluntly to the former-Hufflepuff, who _did _seem to have been jolted to consciousness by the activity and, like Draco, ran from his room towards the commotion. "You know what's happening?"_

_The other man hesitated, not sure whether or not he wanted to gift his knowledge to such a lowly Order member. He answered soon enough, though. "The only people out on duty right now are Seamus, Padma, Oliver and Remus. They all went out on the Borgin and Burke's raid last night and were supposed to be back an hour ago, by the looks of it."_

"_Why wasn't I told any of this?" Draco said indignantly, and Ernie laughed humourlessly. _

"_No one tells you anything yet, Malfoy. You've only been here three months, and you've lived with the Death Eaters for half your life. It's gonna be a long time till you get any information straight from the source."_

_They rounded the corner of the hallway and were met with a rather gruesome sight._

_Three of the four members who had been out on mission were stretched out on cots in the room that had been converted into an infirmary. The fourth, Oliver Wood, stood to the side babbling incoherently about what they had faced upon entering the shop. _

"_They… they knew… we… coming… waiting for days, _years_… horcuxes… too awful, curses, hexes, jinxes, killing everywhere, so much blood… Christ—Mary, Jesus and Joseph… Seamus… Seamus was right… Christ…"_

_Angelina Johnson was standing beside him, attempting to calm him down. "Breathe, Wood. Deep breaths. They're going to be okay. Why don't you let Hannah take a look at those cuts for you?"_

"_Avery… went for Padma and cursed… sliced and arm bits and pieces scattered on the floor…" _

"_Don't worry, we know what's happened," she assured him while inspecting him for further damage. "It's going to be alright, I promise." It was upon finishing this last sentiment that the former-Gryffindor seemed to notice Draco's presence, the first one to do so in the room. "What are you doing here, Maloy?" she demanded. "Shouldn't you be back in your room?"_

"_I came to see what was the matter."_

"_We don't need your help right now."_

_Draco turned and saw Harry Potter approach, looking solemn and worried. "Go back to bed, you and Ernie." _

_The former-Hufflepuff looked annoyed but complied, while Draco stayed exactly where he was._

"_I want to help. I know I can help. My aunt was there, wasn't she?"_

_Harry glared at him, scrutinizing, and the blonde quickly realized his mistake. "Fuck, no, I wasn't any part of this. I can just tell… she relishes being in the thick of things, and wouldn't be able to pass up a chance to hit four of us, especially the werewolf—"_

"_Remus Lupin," Harry said coldly, and Draco hastily amended himself. _

"_Yes, yes, of course. But she has certain curses she favours… I doubt you've ever seen some of these before. Half of the ones she uses she creates herself and tests them on house-elves."_

_The former-Gryffindor shuddered inwardly at the barbarity of it. _Good God, what Hermione would've said…_ "Alright, alright. But you've got five minutes and if you don't provide anything interesting I'm sending you back to your room."_

_Draco opened his mouth to protest but saw the look on Harry's face and grudgingly nodded his agreement._

_He walked first to Padma Patil, who was covered in blood—how much of it was her own was impossible to tell—and whose head was twitching madly, her eyes rolling around beneath the lids. She looked to be in the worst condition of the bunch, of only because of the blood. "It's almost like she was splinched," the blonde mused thoughtfully, seemingly untroubled by her state. It made Harry nervous, though he didn't know that Draco was gagging inside, deftly hiding this emotion to appear more mature and helpful. _

"_Yeah, we've noticed," Lavender Brown said, voice high-pitched towards hysteria, binding every part of her best friend she could see bloodied and charming the bandages with healing spells. However, nothing seemed to work as the blood continued to gush from her wounds and Padma's head continued to thrash about on her neck. _

"_Dobby used to get punished with this one, I think…" Draco said, almost inaudibly, and Harry recoiled in horror. To think, the elf who had (attempted to) save him countless times at Hogwarts was treated in this horrible manner… It made him want to be sick. _

"_Muggle stitching without magic," the blonde said, voice monotonous. "That's the answer to stop the bleeding. Bellatrix designed it exactly so she could claim to never want to associate herself with such a disgustingly muggle practice and make Dobby do it himself with a blunt needle. And then she'd command him not to make a sound." There was a storm cloud of grey passing over the man's eyes now, and Harry was not nearly unobservant enough to miss it. It was at this precise moment that he began to acknowledge that perhaps Draco's life as a Malfoy wasn't the privileged, sheltered one he had thought it to be. _

"_I don't know about the twitching though," he continued so quietly that only Harry could hear. "I think that was a side-effect that went on for days. From the sounds Dobby made, I'm guessing Patil's cursed to relive the pain, even after the wounds have healed."_

"_There are no words for that kind of cruelty," Harry said through gritted teeth._

"_You're preaching to the choir, Potter."_

_Next was Remus Lupin, who looked deathly pale under the candle-light of the room and completely immobile. Harry's face tightened as he looked down at his one-time professor and friend._

"_Is he still alive?" Draco asked, and the brunette nodded stiffly. _

"_Just barely," he added. _

_The blonde looked down at the werewolf lying in front of him, eyes open wide and staring blankly at the ceiling. His skin was the exact colour of ice and his body is just as frozen._

"_Fire," the former-Slytherin said quietly. "Bathe him in fire."_

"_You're joking, right? Do you really mean to tell me that the only way to end this curse is to set him on fire?" Harry demanded. "That's mental!"_

"_That's how it works," Draco replied, tone just as heated. "You asked for help, and I'm giving it to you."_

"_God help me, Malfoy, if he dies from this—"_

"_He won't. I know these curses."_

"_Angelina!" the brunette barked, and the woman turned from Wood towards Harry. _

"_Yeah?"_

"_I need to ask you a favour. Can you take Remus up to one of the other rooms? Malfoy says the countercurse is to 'bathe him in fire'."_

"_You really think that would work?"_

"_That's what Malfoy says. And, Merlin help us, he's the only chance we've got right now, seeing as we don't know a fucking thing about these curses." Harry replied, and it appeared to nearly killed him to say so. _

"_And now Seamus. Hurry, Malfoy, he may not have much time."_

_Draco looked down at the Irishman before him, Harry's closest confidant in the Order and second-in-command since Ron's capture at Malfoy Manor. It was obvious the other man was worried for him. Draco was too—they might not see eye to eye all the time (hardly ever, now that he thought about it) but Seamus Finnegan was always good for a laugh and had that comforting, sardonic humour that the Order had been lacking since Ron's death. He was almost starting to _like_ him._

_The blonde studied him closely, staring at what looked similar to burn marks stretching up and down his face and body. Cho Chang dabbed a wet washcloth against the wounds, stopping every once in a while to try another charm or spell that she thought might stop the pain or the effects of the burns. _

"_FiendFyre, by the looks of it," Harry said. "There's no cure for that."_

"_No, not FiendFyre," Draco countered. His face had darkened considerably. "Something rather similar. A bath of gillyweed, seaweed, and moon-bathed saltwater should do it."_

"_Cho—"_

"_Of course, Harry," she said, quickly leaving the room presumably to gather the materials. _

"_Oh God, Malfoy, I think you've done it," Harry said, looking at the blonde in shock once he realized that he'd provided the countercurses for each of the injuries. He sat down on the windowsill, running a calloused hand through his now-shaggy locks. None of them had had a proper haircut in weeks._

"_Told you I could, Potter," he replied stonily, and the brunette looked up. _

"_What's wrong?" he asked, eyebrow cocked._

"_Let's just say I have more experience with the last curse than I would care to admit," Draco said, and then left the room. _

These cryptic clues and dramatic exits are really getting annoying,_ Harry thought, but didn't follow him out, not sure if he wanted to know the stories entombed in the clues._

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

So this chapter is really more of a flashback chapter than an in-the-now chapter, which I hope no one minds. I recently decided that I did not want to continue the story at the point that I had planned out and written weeks ago, and wanted to write a whole new chapter to insert between the previous one and the next one that will be coming (hopefully) soon. Hence the sort-of late update, which I apologise for. I've been cutting it pretty close with this whole "updates in a week" thing. Also hopefully, my French translation is correct if not close. If it's neither, please correct me.

Also, if you haven't noticed already, I've added dates where I thought they were important (which is basically after almost every one of the little ' ' ' things) because I also recently realised that this fic jumps around a lot and it no doubt at some point got confusing for you poor readers. If it helps, I've made it so that almost everything pre-Ron's-death is in 2001 and every thing post-Ron's-death is in 2002. Finally, I've recently noticed that my writing style is generally very comma-happy, and it sort of bothered me, so I worked with that a bit this chapter. Can you tell the difference? Do you prefer it with all the commas?

Thanks for reading, even this uber-long A/N and please don't forget to drop a review! ~Gen


	7. Delicate

**Delicate  
><strong>"_The look on your face is delicate."  
><em>Damien Rice

* * *

><p><span>March 10<span>th, 2002

Hermione couldn't quite remember what had happened in the time between her falling asleep and her getting into bed beside Draco. All she knew was that when she woke up, she was enveloped in the comforting warmth and strength of his arms, a comfort she was getting used to much more quickly than she ever thought or wished she would.

He told her just last week that he often suffered from weather-induced insomnia. He told her just last week that it seemed to stop altogether, ever since he first slept beside her.

The former-Gryffindor stared at his hand pressing lightly against her stomach, taking in every curve and bump and dent in his skin, his perfectly-manicured fingernails, the wrinkles over his knuckles, the fine white-blonde hair that scurried over them. Every line, every single line, every single colour was beautiful in a way that was so different from Ron.

Hermione had come to compare them to the sun and the moon. Where Ron was all warm, bright, happiness, fiery affection and eternal trust, Draco was pale and mysterious, almost-ethereal, with the things he didn't tell her and why he suddenly cared so much for her, and so much calmer and quieter. Ron had brightened her days, while Draco chased away the dark of the night.

Perhaps the sun would never rise again. But she was sure the moon would always be there to keep the darkness at bay.

In so many ways, Hermione hated herself. She hated herself for depending so much on Harry's, and now Draco's help, and she hated how she felt so powerless to even exist on her own. She hated herself for not doing more, doing _something_ that night at Malfoy Manor, when she was sure _anything _could have prevented the tragedy of the night. She hated herself for feeling this way about Draco, this inexplicable tug, this strange feeling that she had not been able to put her finger on for the longest time until she had finally looked at him and saw_ him_, not just what he was doing for her. She hated that no matter what she did, she knew she would never manage to feel this way about Harry, or Seamus, or Neville, or whoever—all people whom she was sure Ron would have had no problem with whatsoever.

She hated herself for the fact that Draco Malfoy, out of people, would make her want to smile again, and she was so damn powerless to change the fact.

And finally she hated herself because all of this hate did _nothing_ to make her stop this, _want _to stop these slowly growing feelings flaring in her heart, that heart that she would have sworn a year ago belonged completely to Ron.

Her biggest solace for that moment was that she couldn't put a name to these feelings. She didn't think it was love. It was, at the same time, both so much less and so much more than that. It teased with her mind, presented her with one enigma it seemed she would not be able to solve. Not yet, at least. But Hermione wasn't quite sure she wanted to solve it yet.

Though if it was love… _Is it possible to love two people at the same time?_

What a useless question. She rolled over and fell back asleep.

' ' '

March 17th, 2002

A week later Hermione woke up from her nap by a great clanking of pans over her head. The days since had varied, though none were so extreme as those before Draco came to take care of her. The nightmares weren't as frequent, the terror wasn't as paralysing, and the waking up was always more comfortable. For the first time, Hermione finally felt as if she was starting to heal. She didn't think about the effects of this "healing", mainly just the fact that it was happening, and the blonde who was currently grinning at her was responsible.

"Rise and shine!" Draco sang out, bringing the metal pans closer to her ears cheerfully. She looked up with blurred vision and the deplorable taste of morning breath souring her mouth, her hair fanning about her head quite enthusiastically.

"What a _muggle _way to wake one up with, Malfoy," the brunette said crossly, the sound of metal against metal still ringing against her skull despite the fact that the pans were now dangling limply at the blonde's sides. She was actually _enjoying _her sleep, thank you very much, and she was very annoyed with him for disturbing her so _rudely._

To her frustration, Draco smirked and shrugged. "You've infected me, Granger," he said teasingly.

She scoffed and pushed back the covers, making her way to the bathroom. "Ah-ah-ah," Draco said, waving a pan. "It's either there or the kitchen for two hours. Take your pick. Personally, I would take the kitchen."

"_You're kicking me out of my own room? _Why?"

"I've decided I'm cleaning it. It's probably been _at least_ two months since anyone sorted out all this rubbish."

"I know where everything is—" she began but he cut her off.

"And since _you _show no signs of even making this place _habitable _by _muggles_, let alone a wizard such as myself."

"Piss off, Malfoy," she muttered, reaching for the bathroom doorknob. All she wanted to do was brush her teeth, use the toilet, and go back to sleep.

"Not going to happen. Even you leave, or I _make _you leave."

"Honestly, Malfoy?—"

But once against the former-Gryffindor was interrupted, only this time not by words but by actions as Draco dropped the pans and literally swept her off her feet and threw her over his shoulder.

"Put me down, goddammit!" she yelled, slapping on his back, but he simply laughed and walked out the door. _My wand's in my room, _Hermione realised glumly, knowing she would have no way of getting him away. As soon as he set her down on the sofa she bolted back for the bedroom door, but her efforts were futile as Draco's seeker-quick reflexes made their first appearance in a while and he was in front of her in less than a second, holding her in place by the shoulders, far enough that her sticky, short arms couldn't even brush his chest of any other part of him. _Why am I so small? _she thought miserably.

"Not going to happen," he repeated with a sly grin. And then he backed into the room and shut the door behind him, leaving Hermione to slump against the door.

"Dammit," she muttered. "Alright, Malfoy," she said, louder, leaning closer to the door. "But you've got rules. No touching my underwear—"

He laughed uproariously.

"Or anything on my bedside table." Where her wand was currently laying. "Got it?"

"Yeah, yeah," he replied form the other side of the door. "Panties, bras, bedside table. Now let me clean."

Hermione rolled her eyes and made her way towards the couch where she could comfortably pretend that Draco was _not _currently pawing at all of her things.

"Where to start, where to start?" the former-Slytherin said, tapping his chin contemplatively. Clothes were strewn across the floor, the sheets probably hadn't been changed since he started coming over (not that he particularly minded that part—they smelled of Hermione, and he had no problem with that), multiple items hung from her chest of drawers, her vanity a dusty mess…

He eventually decided to clean out her drawers, which were overflowing but seemed not to have been touched for months. Inside were multiple items that had fallen to some form of disrepair, as well as some books that for some reason hadn't made it to her bookshelf in the sitting area. It only took him a few moments to realize why.

"_Of the Veela Variety?_" Draco read loudly off the front, smirking at the cover, which depicted a torn-looking, very attractive woman in a red dress that left little to the imagination, the looming figure of a stunning blonde man behind her. He didn't even have to read two sentences of the back cover to realize what kind of book this was.

"_Shit,_" he could hear her mutter on the other side of the door. "I forgot I had those. They're all gag gifts from friends, I haven't touched them since they were given to me."

Draco raised an eyebrow as he caught sight of the spine, which was cracked and worn. "Mmm hmm," he said, amused.

"Okay, so maybe I read it once. Just to see if it was worth it."

"It looks appears you've read it many more times than just _once_, Granger," he replied. "Never mind," the blonde said before Hermione could say anything else.

He reached past the smutty-looking romance novel to even farther through the drawer before arriving at a small zipper-bag. This Hermione _definitely _hadn't touched in a while, judging by the amount of dust coating it. "Hmmm, what's in here?"

"What are you doing? What have you got, Malfoy?" the brunette demanded, slapping the door, but Draco didn't hear her, his curiosity thoroughly piqued.

He opened the bag, reaching inside to pull out the contents. At first he thought they were small pieces of cloth, protecting some family heirloom or priceless artefact that she would have rather have forgotten, but when under closer inspection…

"I'm not touching them!" Draco shouted, throwing the rather skimpy bits of panties onto the floor, into her laundry pile on the other side of the room. "I'm not touching them, Granger!"

"Oh my God! What did you find?"

"Nothing, nothing," he placated, soothingly. "It was nothing… _Merlin's pants,_" the blonde murmured, quieter. And before he could stop himself, a very clear, very _vivid _vision of Hermione standing in front of him wearing one of those specific articles of clothing popped into his mind, and he had to quickly brush it away, feeling his face burn.

"Draco malfoy, you answer me right now—"

"It was nothing, honestly. Just let me finish, please."

Treading more carefully this time, he reached into the drawer and happened upon a small device with a long, webbed crack in its screen, as well as a longer contraption with many, many tiny holes on either side of it.

"Hey, I know what this is…" he said to himself.

Draco reached into the drawer for the cord he knew would be popping out of the back and searched around the room for an outlet. "Aha!" he said triumphantly, plugging it in.

"Aha what?" Hermione demanded through the door.

"I found something…"

"Found what?"

The blonde stuck the smaller device onto the bigger one, pressing the centre button and swirling around the dial. "Hmm… Playlists… This damn crack, Granger, what did you do to it, throw it at a wall?" No response. _Shit, awkward._ _"_Granger, you wouldn't mind, would you? I really am just curious. Please?"

"No way, Malfoy," she shouted, banging on the door. "I put that away for a reason, put it back!"

"Please."

He must have said it just in the right way because after a short hesitation, she replied, "Alright, alright."

"Thank you," Draco told her, and with that he pressed _shuffle_. Instantly, there was a shouted—"_one two three four!" _from the speakers. Then came the music.

"_Well she was just 17,  
>You know what I mean<br>And the way she looked way way beyond compare.  
>So how, could I dance, with another<br>Oooh!  
>When I saw her<br>standing there."_

"Hey, this isn't too bad Granger!"

"God, I nearly forgot I had this song…"

The idea burst in his quick as a flash, and forgetting his mission for cleaning, Draco leapt for the door and flung it open to see Hermione sitting on the floor beside the door, seeming to be in a better mood. She looked up from her spot on the floor. "Let's go, get up," he said, reaching down and hoisting her up to her feet. "You actually have a pretty good taste in music!"

Grinning madly, he grabbed one of her hands and her waist and began to pull her around the room, navigating through the piles of clothes and debris on the floor while bobbing from side to side.

"_Well she looked at me, and I, I could see  
>That before too long I'd fall in love with her<br>She wouldn't dance with another  
>Whoooh!<br>When I saw her  
>standing there."<em>

"Come on, Granger, it's not that bad." He lifted her arm and twirled her with one finger. She did not protest, but did not turn enthusiastically, either.

_I think I ought to change that…_

Draco spun her around, engaging the reluctant brunette in a series of complicated dance moves that would surely blow her mind without her, herself doing much work. The high-spirited blonde leaned forward in a dip, letting her hair brush the floor before pulling her back up, her eyes wide and dizzy when their gazes met again, and he laughed out loud.

Soon Hermione was dancing with him, throwing in some of her own moves that he would follow through with willingly. It wasn't long before they became reduced into spinning around the room like drunks, Draco interrupting their pattern frequently to throw in some lifts that made Hermione squeal loudly and clutch at any part of him she could reach (which he definitely wasn't complaining about). "You're going to drop me!" she would yell, but he could tell from her voice that she wasn't really worried.

"This is fun!" he exclaimed. "Merlin, I haven't danced in ages…"

"You don't actually suck!" Hermione said over the music.

"Egad!" Draco said to her through a spin. "Hermione Granger just said I was _didn't suck_ at something! Someone go and notify Satan, because I think Hell's freezing over!"

"Shut up," she said, but it was obvious by her tone that she didn't mean it.

"_Oh, we danced through the night,  
>And we held each other tight,<br>And before too long I fell in love with her."_

Draco placed one hand behind her knee while the other one wrapped around her shoulders and up she went, legs flailing.

"Shit!" she shrieked, holding on to his neck tightly. He was suddenly hyper-aware of their bodies and which bits were touching which and how hard her fingers were pressing on his neck and how damn _close _she was—"You scared the hell out of me."

He didn't reply verbally, not trusting himself to speak, instead choosing to spin around in a circle so fast that she got dizzy in two seconds.

"_Now I'll never dance with another  
>Whoooh!<br>Since I saw her  
>standing there!"<em>

Draco belted out that line, throwing back his head as his gorgeous voice rang out in the room while spinning her one final spin and tilting her back low towards the ground and—

She smiled.

She smiled.

Hermione Granger smiled.

A bright, wide, hysterical _grin _that took up nearly half her face, followed by a timid little giggle, and Merlin they were both so bloody beautiful, he'd forgotten how she looked when she smiled, how brightly her face lit up, he'd been dreaming of this, her smile, for months now while he'd wished he memorized every fucking time she'd ever smiled while they were at school…

"Draco, you're staring."

_Draco._

_Draco._

_Draco._

He beamed down at her, suddenly quite aware that she was still half-airborne. For the first time he could remember, she was warm under his touch. Not freezing, not cold, not room-temperature or normal—simply _warm_.

"_Hermione_, you're smiling."

"No way," she said sardonically, then paused. "Aren't your arms getting tired?"

"My arms are fine," the blonde said.

"But all the blood is rushing to my head," the brunette commented.

"Oh, yeah," he said with a short chortle, pulling her up and then back on her feet. "There. How do you feel?"

"Sufficient," she said with a shrug, but her smile told him otherwise. Draco was stunned. Awed. Speechless.

_Blinded_.

He couldn't remember the last time he was alarmed and delighted with a girl's expression. It was a good feeling.

"So what's the next song?" Draco wished the first thing that came to his mind didn't sound so insignificant and trivial all the time.

But her smile didn't go away and he was so thankful. "I have no idea. You picked _shuffle, _right?"

"I think so. But it's your iPod, your list. Surely you have some idea?"

"I haven't touched it in a year," Hermione said, sobering considerably.

"Ah, right," Draco said timidly, worried that anything he said would cause the beautiful, _happy_ girl in front of her to revert back to her previously melancholy, hope-less state. Her mood was so fragile, unstable, delicate; he'd forgotten this and how much of a risk he'd taken pushing her buttons by attempting to clean her room. "Well, why don't you take a gue—" he began, but she cut him off by placing a finger against his lips. _She was touching his lips._

"Listen, it's starting," Hermione said, her hand sliding from his mouth to his shoulder.

And it was.

There was the low, steady thrum of a guitar, picked string by string, low and sweet. The sound was simple, yet beautifully so. The feeling it inspired deep inside his heart, past his ribcage and behind that pumping organ that seemed to beat only for her these days, was indescribable. He was drowning in it, in her, in her scent and her closeness and her smile.

He was drowning in the music, and he was drowning in love.

"_We might kiss  
>when we are alone<br>when nobody's watching  
>We might take it home<br>We might make out  
>when nobody's there<br>It's not that we're scared  
>It's just that it's delicate."<em>

As mind processed the lyrics, a rush of emotion crashed down on Draco's heart, smothering his airways and constricting his throat. Cautiously he reached for her, gently taking her waist in his hands and pulling her towards him, tenderly, softly, gently, intertwining his fingers at the very bottom of her back.

Surprisingly, Hermione did not push him away, as he'd expected. Actually, it only took her a few moments to reach up and curl her arms and her neck, his skin _burning_ where they touched. _Her touch was beautiful. _Draco would have bottled it and saved it forever if he could.

He began to rock side to side, settling in chin in her mass of unruly, soft curls, and then his cheek, tightening his grip around her waist. They began a dance of sorts, though they followed no beat now paid heed to the rhythm. Most of the dance took place _inside_, though, as their hearts reached out to the other and began a slow, warm embrace.

"_So why'd you fill my sorrows  
>With the words you've borrowed<br>From the only place you've known  
>And why'd you sing Hallelujah<br>If it means nothing to you  
>Why'd you sing with me at all?"<em>

Hermione pressed her face against his chest—the top of her head barely reached his collar bone. She was adorably short. Draco could feel her inhale against his t-shirt and then exhale, her breath cool even through the layer of clothing between them. It was seemed very much like she was breathing in his very essence, and the thought made his heart swell and his stomach do backflips.

Then: "I don't understand this," she whispered into his chest, voice nearly inaudible.

The soft reply: "You don't have to," even though he wasn't 100 per-cent sure what she was talking about. All he could think about was keeping her happy, keeping her in this state of pure contentment where her eyes were no longer empty, muddy holes and her lips curled into that gorgeous smile and it no longer hurt her just to breathe. Draco would savour it, as long as he could. That's what life was all about, right? Soaking in what you could, when you could?

"_We might live  
>like never before<br>When there's nothing to give  
>Well, how can we ask for more?<br>We might make love  
>in some secret place<br>The look on your face  
>it was delicate."<em>

_Love is a funny thing. It creeps up on you when you're least expecting it and sticks, no matter how much you may want it to leave. It's something that you can barely define, but something you feel so strongly nevertheless._

Draco didn't have too many memories on love. His first and only ones were of his mother, reading to him by wand-light when he was younger, carrying him around the house, applauding him enthusiastically when he first slid off a broom after his first-ever flight, hair wind-tousled form the most exhilarating experience of his short life. And for a long while, there was nothing else. Perhaps a sense of camaraderie and trust between Blaise, or even a slight caring for Pansy, even though she _did_ annoy the hell out of him. But nothing ever this close to what he felt now with Hermione. Nothing ever this close.

"_So why'd you fill my sorrow  
>With the words, you've borrowed?<br>From the only place that you've known?  
>And why'd you sing Hallelujah?<br>If it means nothing to you?  
>Why'd you sing, with me, at all?"<em>

If someone had asked him to define love before seeing Hermione that first time in her room at St. Mungo's, he would have sneered and scoffed to make up for the fact that he hadn't a bloody idea. But now… it was almost easy.

_Love is smiling when you wake up every morning because you know you're going to see her again. Love is breathing every breath just for a few more moments to spend with her. Love is never wanting to let go of her, of wanting to hold her in your arms forever. _

_It's a tidal wave; a fast, heavy one that descends over your heart so rapidly that by the time you've noticed it, the water has already seeped into your clothes. It's a raging fire that takes hold of you and possesses your every thought until all that's left in your head is her. Her. It's a refreshing wind that combs through your hair and your skin and your clothes and makes you want to throw your arms out, close your eyes, and spin until the world stops spinning. It's the smallest, strongest, most beautiful of flowers that rise from the ground even when there is no moisture to nourish it and no sun to smile down on it._

Draco kissed the top of Hermione's head, pressing his lips gently against her hair, breathing in her amazing scent, bathing in it, memorizing the feeling of her soft curls against his skin. He never wanted to forget this, this incredible sensation. He never wanted to forget _her_—which was a bit of a pointless thought at this point. He didn't think he ever could.

A thousand memory charms would never let him forget Hermione Granger.

"_And why'd you fill, my sorrows  
>With the words you've borrowed<br>From the only place, that you've known?  
>Why'd you sing Hallelujah<br>If it means nothing to you  
>Why'd you sing, with me, at all?"<em>

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **

So yep, iPods did exist at this point in time, but no, they did not exist when I planned Hermione to get hers (Probably around 2000). Yes, this song came out in time so that it did exist when they're listening to it now, but no, its album did not come out at the time that I wanted Hermione to have first bought it, which would have been a few months before Ron's death. Oh, and **I don't own ANY of the lyrics used,** of course, so please don't sue me :)

I once again apologize for the late-ness of this chapter, and hope you all can forgive me, as well as for any conventions errors I mentioned to miss. I've finally caught up with all the chapters I'd written before hand, so I might be even slower this time around. BUT I'VE BREACHED 100 PAGES! I've never done that before, it's so exciting XD Plus, I hit 4,500 for word count on this chappie. Well, thanks for reading if you're a newbie, and thanks for coming back if you're not. Happy reading! ~Gen


	8. Morning Lullabies

**Morning Lullabies  
><strong>"_I know you have to close your eyes on everyone.  
><em>_Let me help you, I'll sing you to sleep."  
><em>Ingrid Michaelson

* * *

><p><span>June 4<span>th, 2001

_There was a knock at his door. _

"_Malfoy?"_

_The former-Slytherin looked up from his desk where he had been reading through Harry's notes on the last Order meeting. He'd missed it, having had library duty, dusting all the shelves and performing charms on the mouldiest of the books like a common house-elf. _Small steps,_ he'd reminded himself._

_There, standing in his doorway, was Weasley. The she-one, rather. Though she looked just as tough and determined as she had in their school days, the fiery passion behind her eyes seemed to have fizzled out, and she looked just as worn and ragged as the rest of the Order with the wide, dark circles under her eyes and a face so thin it looked like her skin was stretched too tight across her skull. It was hard to believe she was only nineteen. _Still a what am I talking about? I'm only a year older.

"_Good evening, Weasley," he said, nodding politely._

"_How are you?" she asked, eyes flickering along his person._

"_Well enough," the blonde answered neutrally. "You?"_

"_Sufficient as well," she sighed. _

"_How may I help you?" The words tasted bitter in his mouth—he, asking a _Weasley _how he could be of service to her. Generations of prejudice and imprinted ideas still made their rounds in his head occasionally, though usually he was able to conceal them. Weasley really wasn't that bad. She was stubborn to the point of annoying nearly all of the time and just as ridiculously outspoken as her brothers on most matters. But she was no doubt more intelligent than most of them and sometimes just listening to her speak was inspiring._

"_That's not why I'm here," she said quietly. The ginger gestured to the bed. "May I sit down?"_

"_Of course," he replied graciously. _

"_I wanted to talk about Hermione."_

_Draco was silent._

"_Harry told me you visited her yesterday."_

"_And I told Potter that I didn't want that information getting around."_

"_It's not 'getting around'. He only told me because I'm his girlfriend _and _one of _her _best friends," Ginny told him, slightly indignant. "And because of that, I think I should warn you—don't go stirring up any trouble. No one needs it right now."_

"_I'm not stirring up trouble."_

"_Maybe you aren't doing it intentionally, but there's no doubt people are going to talk when they hear you've been visiting her every single day."_

"_Did Potter tell you that, too?" he snapped sharply._

"_No, you did. Just now."_

"_Shit."_

"_Listen, Malfoy. There are two possible outcomes right now that have presented themselves if you continue this. One: You haven't even come _close _to being completely trusted by half the Order. If people start hearing about you visiting Hermione, they're going to start talking. Suspecting. You don't want that, especially when Harry and I are both convinced you're genuine. Two: You're going to fall in love with her, which will be just as disastrous. You're not the type to let things get away from you. You're a Slytherin. And Hermione doesn't need that right now. You're going to confuse her and hurt her."_

"_I'm not going to fall in love with her!" Draco said angrily. "You're the second person to tell me this in the past two weeks." Instantly he cursed himself, what if she inquired on whom exactly had told him this?_

_But mercifully, she didn't, and he was glad for it. But she did say: "You're wrong. You're going to fall in love with her if you keep this up. It's just the way things are. I think the only reason Harry hasn't is because he's already got me." She didn't say it jealously, or haughtily. Just matter-of-fact. He liked that about her. She never let her emotions get in the way of the serious stuff. "So I implore you, Malfoy. Stay away from her a bit. Moderate the amount of time you spend with her. No good will come out of it if you don't."_

"_Fine." the blonde said. "Whatever you say Weasley. Even though the whole thing is ridiculous."_

"_Thank you." Ginny stood. "I ought to go. See you, Malfoy."_

"_Bye, Weasley."_

_And he was true to his word, despite the voice in his head that was screaming at him to totally ignore her request._

_He only visited Hermione every other day._

_' ' ' _

March 25th, 2002

In books, so many people could sing. Singers were fairly common. Authors who wrote about people singing were fairly common. Authors describing the sound people made when they sang were common as well. Hermione was well aware. What she _wasn't_ aware of was the impossibility of an author truly describing any one person's voice, especially the voice of someone who could sing so spectacularly.

While they were at Hogwarts, Hermione had never really pegged Draco for the musical type. She obviously assumed all he was was the "Using-a-Maginfying-Glass-to-Burn-Worms-to-a-Crisp", or the "Use-Daddy's-Money-to-Lord-over-the-School's-Halfwits" type. At the same time, she had never heard him play piano or cello or sing (and he could do all three) so it was quite understandable that she had never even _guessed_ that he was as good as he was.

"My mother's mother had a great appreciation for music," Draco had once explained to her. "None of my other grandparents did, but Grandmother Druella made sure that I had education in at least two branches of music. So even before my feet could reach the pedals, before my spread hand could even span an octave, I was learning how to play piano." Hermione liked that he could play piano. She liked the idea that his hands could produce something as beautiful as music.

"I started cello when I was a second-year. I only learned during the summer, though, because of school and all. I started taking ballroom-dance lessons that year, too. Merlin, they were torture," he said with a chuckle. "I don't think I'll ever have bad posture again."

"What about the singing?" Hermione asked him.

"That's all natural, Granger," he answered. "Never once had a singing lesson. I've got perfect pitch, you see. It translates easily to my vocal chords."

She'd gaped at him, open-mouthed. "I would give anything to have perfect pitch," she said enviously, and he laughed again.

"My grandmother only ever taught me how to sing one song because she'd sing to me all the time when I was younger. It's a lullaby," Draco said. "Would you like to hear it?"

She nodded. "Yes, please."

"_The sun is rising  
>Over the wood and over the nests<br>The owls are singing  
>Putting their sons and daughters to rest.<em>

_Their morning lullabies  
>ring out through the trees<br>It settles on the leaves  
>And floats on the breeze.<em>

_Sleep, my love  
>sleep through the night<br>and when you wake  
>I'll hold you tight.<em>

_And if you're still tired  
>I'll sing you a morning lullaby."<em>

All those descriptions, those flowing passages she drank up like ice-cold water in a desert that told her that the voice sounded like warm honey, like the peal of jingle bells, like the blare of a French horn—they were meaningless. It was impossible to describe the sound of this voice, this voice that sang his childhood to her. _I would rather be blind than deaf,_ Hermione decided right then.

"I used to think it extremely strange," Draco said when he was finished, completely missing Hermione's look of utter awe. "'Owls don't sing,' I would complain to my grandmother. 'They hoot. And it isn't even that pretty.'"

That night, Draco insisted that Hermione go and get ready for bed early. "I'll be in a minute, okay?" he told her as he wiped down his bowl from the tomato soup they'd had for dinner. As soon as the door shut behind her, the former-Slytherin dug into his pocket for the coin Ginny had given him a few days ago.

"We got a new lead," she had told him. "Snape says there is to be a Death Eater meeting at the Lestrange House in a few days. He's not exactly sure when, but he's to tell us as soon as he can. You're on the mission."

"Wait, why?" Draco then demanded. He hadn't been put on a mission since taking up his job as Hermione's caregiver.

Ginny had hesitated before answering. "There's rumour your father is supposed to be heading the meeting. Kingsley wants to use you as a sort of surprise-factor. You know, catch him off guard. Also, to make him second-guess all his actions."

"That's pointless," Draco had said. "I'm dead to my father. He's disinherited me and everything."

Ginny had looked sceptical and kept him on the mission anyway. Earlier in the week she had owled him, writing that the raid was to be conducted on the 25th of March and he was expected be at the rendezvous point immediately after the coin heated.

"Why can't I come here?" he'd asked once she explained this part of the plan in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place.

"Kingsley's assignment in America and Susan's in Albania will be finishing up that night. It's easier for us all to go to the rendezvous point from all our different locations than to head to Grimmauld place and then the rendezvous and then the Lestrange House.

"Why can't we just go from Gimmauld to the Lestrange's?"

"Because they're watching Snape more closely now," Ginny had explained. "We don't want to run the risk of him being caught at the front door of headquarters. We'll be meeting him for any last-minute information at the rendezvous and meet there if we get separated afterward."

Draco never intended on telling Hermione about the mission. This one was going to be a cinch. If Snape's information was correct—which it always was, no matter how hard it was to find in the first place—then there would be only five Death Eaters at this meeting. There were ten Order Members on the mission. The chances of him getting seriously injured were very small; the chances of him dying were even smaller. He planned to slip out after she went to sleep and slip back in before she woke up the next morning—_a nearly fool-proof plan if there ever was one_, he'd thought.

Draco walked from the kitchen to Hermione's bedroom, pushing the door open slowly so she would have time to yell at him if she was changing or something, but he wouldn't have to knock in case she was asleep.

"Draco?" she whispered, rolling over on the bed to look up at him. "Aren't you staying?" There was something akin to panic in her voice and it made his heart swell.

"Of course," the former-Slytherin lied smoothly, walking over and sliding underneath the blankets beside her. He heard her turn towards him and did the same. The brunette was looking at him with a curious expression on her face that he couldn't read.

"Draco?"

"Yes?"

"Can you—can you sing me that song? The one your grandmother sang to you when you were little?"

"Of course," he said again, and this time it wasn't a lie.

' ' '

February 2nd, 2002

_It had been a bad week for the Order. On the surface, things didn't seem _too _disastrous. No deaths all week, and only two injuries. But horcrux research was going nowhere, and they were running out of strategies and information from the other side. Severus Snape was now their only spy, and every time he came back to headquarters (which was really only every two weeks or so) he came with reports of how Lord Voldemort was starting lose trust in him. The holes and walls that the Potion's Master had to put in his memory to stop the Dark Lord from realising Snape was a double agent was putting him on edge. Voldemort stopped confiding in him._

_Before she was captured at Malfoy Manor, Hermione had been the Order's best researcher, as was to be expected. She worked with Susan Bones and Padma Patil researching horcruxes, delving back into the memories Dumbledore provided of the young Riddle, and planning attacks and missions with Remus, Kingsley, Ginny and Harry—the top four Order Members besides Dumbledore, despite the young age of the latter two. Now, though, both Hermione and Padma were incapacitated and neither seemed likely to return to their positions any time soon. _

_Presently, Draco was sitting in his room at Grimmauld Place, a heavy book on horcruxes on his lap. The text was tiny and difficult to read—every once in a while he found himself placing his _lumos_'d wand so close to the paper that it began smoking a little. He was almost relieved when he heard the knock at his door. _

"_Who is it?"_

"_Ginny."_

Oh dear Merlin_. Yes, he was taking a liking to the ginger-haired witch. But that didn't mean he enjoyed their one-on-one talks about Hermione. Since he insisted on taking over Harry's place as her caregiver, the she-Weasley had insisted that he give her reports on her friend's progress every-so-often. Usually, these chats involved annoyingly thorough questions that were asked over the span of nearly an hour, and ended with her criticising a hundred different things he did since the last check-in._

"_Okay, okay, come in. But do me a favour and make it quick, Weasley. I've got reading to do." As she opened the door Draco gestured to the book on his lap. Seconds ago he would have been grateful for the break from horcruxes, but now he much rather would have sat bent over its decrepit pages for another hour._

"_Mind if I take a seat?" Ginny asked, gesturing to the simple wooden chair that sat tucked under the desk beside his bed. _

"_No, it's all yours," he said, shutting the book and setting it beside him. "Alright, what do you want to know tonight."_

"_Well, Malfoy… I'm concerned."_

_Draco was taken aback. Sure, Ginny had shown concern a hundred times. But then it was more of a nit-picky, "Do you give her enough vegetables? What sort of books are you two reading? Is she using tampons or spells?" (like he would know, for Merlin's sake!) sort of thing. This seemed more serious; and moreover, it seemed like whatever it was, it'd been weighing on Ginny's mind for a while._

"_About what?" he said, forcing his tone to be gentler._

"_I think… I think Hermione is too closed off. She spending too much time in that flat, all alone."_

_The former-Slytherin took a deep breath. _Oh, so this is all it is. _He'd been expecting this conversation and had actually wondered why it hadn't come sooner._

"_She's not alone, though. She's with me," he assured the troubled Weasley._

"Only _you," Ginny continued. "You're the only person besides… H-Harry who has talked to her since—"_

"_I actually think that's contributing to her progress," Draco maintained. "She had a pretty long conversation with me yesterday, talking about what jobs we wanted to do when the war ended. It was almost as if she was back to normal."_

"_Then that's a good sign that she's ready to see other people, then," Ginny argued. "So many people want to make her feel better, not just you."_

"_I never said that."_

"_But that's what you're implying by shutting yourself in with her all day. We all miss Hermione and none of us have seen her in more than a month." She sighed. "And she can't hide for the world forever, Malfoy."_

"_She can hide from the world for now," he retorted. "She _needs_ to be alone. This is her escape from the reality that's nearly caused her to lose her mind. If all these people from her past, from that reality that's torn her apart, start showing up out of the blue, how do you think she's going to handle that?"_

"_But what makes you any different?" the Ginny demanded, her frustration clearly evident at this point. "What makes you so different from everyone else in the Order that she's okay with seeing you?"_

_Draco was silent._

"_Oh, _I_ see," she said, leaning back in the chair, narrowing her eyes. "You've gone and done it, haven't you?"_

"_Done what?"_

_The red-head let out a humourless chuckle. "You've gone and bloody fallen in love with her. Just like I said you would if you kept it up, just like I told you _not to do_. Way to go. Real nice." She stood up from her chair. "Sometimes, Malfoy, you go right back to that asshole you were in school." And just like that, Ginny walked out of the room, leaving Draco alone with his big book on horcruxes and a million thoughts buzzing through his head._

' ' '

March 26th, 2002

Hermione woke up that morning to Draco's scent, but no Draco. She blinked away the last remnants of sleep that lingered between her eyelids, stretching and yawning in her decidedly cat-like manner. The alarm clock on her bedside table read 7:19 A.M. and the flannel button-down he had worn the day before was pressed up against her face. There was the fresh trace of his cologne and soap left over on the fabric, as well as his own personal, almost minty scent and the cheap detergent he used whenever he washed his things at her flat.

And not only was she lying on an article of his clothing, she was also lying on his side of the bed. _How curious,_ she thought. _I've always been partial to the right side._ Hermione shrugged it off, hastily pushing it away to the back of her mind as she began doing with so many of the thoughts spawned from something involving Draco.

Hermione was finding that the more she dwelled on the strange things Draco did, said, and implied with his words and his actions, the more lost, confused, and generally messed-up she felt. It was better simply to live in the moment, to focus on what was going on in front of her instead of the things inside her head that were liable to come out and bite her at any moment.

She sat up in bed, stretching and yawning loudly. Then she was silent, listening for the tell-tale sounds of Draco making breakfast in the kitchen. But there were no sounds. All was quiet. _If I didn't know better, I would think the flat is empty_, she thought. _But that's impossible. Draco stayed last night. He was sleeping right there_.

Nevertheless, she jumped up from the bed and flung open the bedroom door, scanning the flat for any sign of the blonde.

There were none.

"Draco?" Hermione called, fear and apprehension pulsing through her veins along with the blood. "Draco, come out. Come out right now!" There was no answer. "Please. Come out."

_Where the hell could he be?_ she asked herself, falling to her knees. _I would have heard if he was captured by Deatheaters—and even if I didn't, why wouldn't they take me, too? He must have left by his own free will, but why not tell me? And why wasn't he here now?_

For the shortest of moments Hermione considered the idea that he'd abandoned her but she quickly deemed the notion preposterous—they were both too close at this point. He wouldn't have abandoned her. He _couldn't_ have abandoned her.

_What if he's dead?_

_No, Hermione. You can't think like that. He's not dead. He can't be dead. You would—you would be able to tell_. And it was true. So strong was their bond at this point that she could feel it in her bones—he was alive.

So completely at a loss, she lied down on the couch and waited for him to come home.

"You're insane!" Ginny shouted at Draco as he grabbed his blood-stained cloak from the laundry basket across the room.

"Good," he retorted. "Granger and I will make an even better match, then." The speaking alone brought a quick stab of pain onto his side. He quickly hid his reaction by turning to face the wall.

She stormed toward him, turning him around and jabbing a finger into his chest. "You heard Parvati—she said you would need to be in bed for at _least_ a whole day before the last effects of the curse wore off. What if it comes back to bite you, hm? Who's going to take care of Hermione then?"

"And what if it kills me?" Draco countered. "I'll have died without telling her anything."

"It won't kill you; as long as you stay in _bed!_" the red-headed witch said loudly. "Look at you—you're already feeling its effects," she pointed out as he gripped his side and winced. "Honestly, Draco, she can survive one day without you. I'll even go and check on her."

"No!" the blonde said, much too quickly. Ginny stopped dead I her tracks, eyebrow raised. "No, I'm going to see her and that's that."

"Malfoy, you're being bloody unreasonable. You think Harry would want you to go and kill yourself like this?"

"Potter has nothing to do with anything anymore," Draco said coldly. "He's—"

"Stay. You're no good to her dead."

"For fuck's sake, Weasley, I'm good enough for now—"

"No, you're not. Look, you can hardly stand up."

Huh. He hadn't realised he was swaying on the spot until she pointed it out. Draco shook his head, unclouding his mind. "I'm fine, Weasley. Let me through to my wand!"

"You pigheaded idiot. You incorrigible blockhead—"

"Let me _through_, Weasley!" he shouted, pushing her out of the way and immediately regretting it as pain lanced up his side.

"Fine!" Ginny yelled from behind him. "Just leave already, go and ruin yourself, see if I give a bloody damn—"

"I will!" he shouted in reply, reaching for his wand off the bedside table. In another moment he was apparating, feeling the nausea and twisting in his guts that did nothing for the curse-inflicted pain that ricocheted all over his waist and hips.

But it was all worth it as he landed in front of the apartment door. _I'm going to see her again,_ Draco thought excitedly. _After last night, thinking I was going to die without telling her I—_

His thoughts were brutally interrupted as the door was flung open and before he even saw her coming, her stick-like arms were flung around his neck, her face buried in his chest and it was like Christmas and his birthday and Summer Holidays all wrapped into one—

_SMACK!_

Draco recoiled, stumbling back through the doorway and holding his face, gasping at the sting her slap had inflicted on his cheek.

"_Draco Malfoy, where the fuck have you been?_ I've been sitting here, wondering if you're alright, where you are, if you're _dead_, even, and you didn't even leave a note, just went up and left in the middle of the night like some damn sneaking, lying, conniving _Slytherin_, leaving me all on my own to ponder your fate and—"

Before Hermione could say another word he pulled her back towards him and crushed him against him, completely ignoring the pain in his side and simply relishing the fact that had hugged him and was allowing him to hug her now.

"I'm sorry," he whispered into her hair. "I'm sorry I left without telling you. It was stupid."

"You bet it was," Hermione said viciously, pulling away to jab a finger into his chest. _She and Weasley are so alike,_ Draco thought, amused. The brunette opened her mouth to speak but closed it abruptly. "Is that _blood_ on your cloak?" she gasped.

He looked down. _Shit, I forgot about that…_

"It _is _blood! You better come in right now, Draco, and explain this all to me. And take off that cloak on your way in—you'll want to clean that as soon as possible, or it'll leave a stain. And don't think I'm getting you a glass of water," she said from the kitchen, where she was pulling a cup down from the cabinet. "This is for me."

Draco did what he was told, simply glad just to see her, and took a seat beside her at the counter. She stood across from him, a determined look on her face. _I haven't seen her show this much emotion since the time we danced in her room,_ he observed. The former-Slytherin wasn't quite sure how he felt about that, considering she was liable to hit him again at any moment.

"Now explain."

He took a deep breath. "We had a raid at the Lestrange's last night. I was only called in because my father was supposed to be in charge—Kingsley thought it would be a good idea to bring me along, make him second guess himself. It was supposed to be two-to-one for us but apparently Voldemort doesn't trust Snape anymore because we were fed wrong information—it was the other way around. _We _were outnumbered two-to-one."

"Who went with you?" Hermione demanded.

"George Weasley, Kingsley, Bones, Longbottom, Lovegood, Johnson, Tonks, Lupin, Thomas and I," Draco listed them one by one, folding his hands and twitching his thumbs around.

"And is everyone okay?"

"Yes," he answered. Which was technically, in some way or another, true. No one died… yet. Dean, Neville and George were still unconscious, in curse-induced comas, and no one really had had high hopes for Angelina. Draco could still see Fred's shattered expression as he ran into the infirmary room and caught sight of his girlfriend _and_ his twin.

"Are _you _okay?" she asked, gaze sharper than before, making sure he didn't lie.

"I… I'll live," he stammered, looking down at his thumbs and now acutely aware of the throbbing pain in his side that was slowly spreading over his chest.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Hermione said suspiciously.

"It means I'll live," Draco said.

"What happened?"

"Nothing—I'm fine."

"Fine my arse."

"I'm not getting into it, Hermione."

"Draco Malfoy, you cannot just take off in the middle of night without telling me, put your neck on the line without tell me, and then leave me for four hours to wonder where the bloody hell you are and wondering if you're even going to _come back _without at least showing me what happened to you."

He sighed.

"Come on, up. Onto the counter," she said, straightening and walking around the island towards him. "Honestly, I don't mind."

Draco sighed again and hoisted himself up onto the granite surface, cringing as the throbbing pain spread along his stomach. _Maybe Weasley was right,_ a small part of him whispered. _No_, he thought back. _If I stayed at Grimmauld Place, who knows what Hermione would have done, considering how upset she is now?_

"Yaxley hit me," he said, unbuttoning his shirt. It had been too hard to get a t-shirt on him back at Headquarters. "It doesn't even hurt that much anymore." _Liar,_ the same voice said fiercely as he shrugged off the button-down and placed it on the counter beside him.

Hermione was now staring at his torso, bare except for band of bandages wrapped around his waist, and despite the circumstances Draco somehow felt a stirring inside him that he knew shouldn't be there. _Stop it. You're showing her your wound. Your gross, blackened, puss-oozing, (hopefully) scabbing wound,_ he thought.

"I'll be right back," she said. "I'm going to grab some bandages. I'm going to unwrap it all anyway, so might as well change them while we're at it."

Draco nodded and she headed off towards the bathroom. When she was out of sight he slid a hand down his face. _Honestly, get a grip on yourself._

Hermione came back with a roll of bandages in one hand and a little vial in her other. "Whatever it is that hurt you, this should help with the pain," she explained, shaking the little vial.

"Now hold still—it'll hurt less if you don't move."

Hermione set the supplies down on the stool underneath the counter and began undressing his wound. Apparently, the blood and puss that had seeped from the broken, blackened skin latched on and crusted against the fabric of the bandage, and the more layers she got through, the more painful it was to remove the next layer. Every once in a while her fingers would brush his skin on their way to the cloth and Draco would find his breathing accelerating, clenching his abdominal muscles in anticipation—though for what, he couldn't be sure.

It took a good ten minutes, but eventually Hermione was pulling away the final layer, exposing the disfigured skin beneath. She gasped and put a hand to her mouth.

"Ugly thing, isn't it?" Draco said conversationally. The first time he caught sight of it the night before he'd nearly gotten sick. The skin around the wound was mostly black, and wrinkled, too, like a raisin or prune. The wound itself was small, perhaps an inch all around, and if you looked at it from a certain angle you would be able to see the now-charcoal-coloured muscle beneath.

Hermione gazed down at it, her expression indecipherable. "Does it hurt?" she asked softly.

"Just a bit," he lied. The former-Gryffindor reached for the vial.

"This is going to make it sting," she told him. "But trust me, a few moments later it'll feel much better." She dabbed a bit of the yellow-ish liquid from the vial onto her fingertips and gently pressed them into the wound. Draco hissed in pain, gripping the edge of the counter tightly.

"I warned you," she said lightly, keeping her fingers pressed against the gaping hole. "Just wait a moment before it settles in. Don't want any excess dribbling out…"

They stood there for what seemed like an eternity to Draco, with less than six inches between their bodies and her fingers pressed against his stomach. The blonde could feel the heat radiating from her, and no doubt she could feel it coming off him, because _he _could feel it coming off him. He knew it was pointless and wrong to think about _anything_ along _those _lines at that particular moment but his body didn't seem to understand that, and he felt his temperature sky-rocket as each seconds ticked by.

It didn't take as long as he thought it was for the sting to fade and be replaced by a dull, mellow throb that was definitely preferable to the agonizing pounding that had drummed through his side.

Clearly Hermione could feel the tension, too, for when she finally removed her fingers and said, "There, that should do it," her voice was hoarse and soft. She didn't say anything else, though. Instead, she simply grabbed the roll of bandages and began to wrapping him back up. Each time their skin made contact, it was like a small but powerful candle flame had come alive. Her movement slowed as she finished the binding, as if she didn't want the moment to end. Draco shared this feeling. Very much.

And then, somehow, when Hermione had tucked the last corner underneath all the many layers, her hands found their way farther up his torso, palms flat against the planes of his chest. Draco's breath came suddenly very short and very fast.

Slowly, painfully slow, she raised her head and looked straight into his eyes, searching their silver depths like she would find all her answers there. His breath stopped altogether. She was so beautiful. He wanted to kiss her so badly. So damn badly.

"Hermione," he whispered, leaning down closer and closer towards her until their noses were milliseconds away from brushing. "I'm about to kiss you now. Stop me, goddammit, I'm going to kiss you."

But she didn't stop him, she was frozen in place, her lips parted slightly, oh-so-tantalizingly, and before he knew it his mouth was slanted against hers in a kiss he had been waiting on, had been thinking about, had been _dreaming _about for months.

It was amazing. Better than amazing. Perfect. More than he ever could have hoped for. She didn't pull away. _She kissed him back_, hands sliding up to his shoulders and wrapping around his neck, enveloping him in her touch and in her scent and _her_. His hands dove into his hair, finger intertwining with her smooth, curly locks, bringing her ever closer, because no matter how close they got, it would never be enough.

All too soon Draco ran out of air and had to break away, gasping for breath, hands still in her soft hair. He rested his forehead against hers, glad to see she was just as winded as he was.

"Last night, there were a few seconds where I thought I was going to die," he said to her. "And the only thing I could think about was how I would never get to kiss you."

"Do it again. Quick. Before I change my mind."

And he was only too happy to oblige.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

LONGEST EFFING CHAPTER TO DATE. And, longest wait between chapters to date. I do apologize for that... but hopefully the length and the *eek!* kiss *eek!* make up for it. I originally planned for their first kiss to come later, but I got this idea in my head and decided to completely rewrite that bit (hence the lateness)

I think this song it fit in very well, especially with the second bit with Ginny and Draco... the lyrics I chose are a sort of metaphor for how he thinks Hermione needs her solitude ("I know you have to close your eyes on everyone") and how he's helping her to keep that solitude ("Let me help you, I'll sing you to sleep") The lullaby Draco learned from his grandmother is actually something I wrote, but just the lyrics. If you're a musician and would like to write the music, be my guest. Just cred me with the lyrics if you share it and I would love to hear it!

As a last minute note, please forgive me for any of the conventions errors I may have missed... I only looked over it once so I could post it tonight. Thanks to all the people who reviewed, favourited, and alerted this fic, you guys are all so brilliant! ~Gen


	9. Maybe

**Maybe  
><strong>"_The only way to really know  
><em>_is to really let it go."  
><em>Ingrid Michaelson

* * *

><p><span>A letter from Draco Malfoy to Blaise Zabini, dated May 21<span>st, 2001

_Blaise,_

_ I suppose I really shouldn't be contacting you, what with me trying to get into the Order and you still on the other side, even though you haven't been initiated yet. Never mind. This bird will never reveal my location and has been trained to shred the letter it carries at the first sign of danger. I've decided to owl you because I need your advice. Something has happened, and you may or may not be aware of this already, but just in case…_

_A few days ago Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were captured at the Manor where, as you know, I haven't lived since a year after leaving school. There, they were tortured; Weasley until death and Granger until the Order found them. _

_And this really shouldn't bother me. I know it shouldn't, what with the way we've been brought up. I shouldn't give a damn about what's happened to Weasley or that Granger may never wake up without screaming again or that Potter has nearly lost both of his best friends. _I shouldn't give a flying fuck. _But I do. Merlin help me, Blaise, I do, and I don't know why. It's eating at me. I don't understand it at all, but it's happening and it's scaring me. _

_There. I said it. I'm scared. _

_But that's not even the craziest thing. I went to see Granger this morning, at St. Mungo's. And Merlin, Blaise, you should've seen her. It was looking at death and torture and hopelessness all in one go. It hurt my eyes. But I couldn't leave. God, I couldn't bring myself to. I don't know why, but there's something…_

_When I decided to join the Order, all I wanted was for people to be mad at me for something I did five days ago and not five years. (Well, that and to avoid a. rotting in hell or b. Voldemort skinning me alive when I fucked up—which we all know was bound to happen at some point) I didn't want to be the person that I was anymore. I mean, I like my sarcasm. And my undeniable charm. And my devilishly good looks (don't pretend you never noticed). But I could do without the rest, and the reputation. I was getting tired of the sneers, or the flinches, the glares. I wanted to prove that I was no longer this automaton who only spewed the slurs he was taught by his family. And where else better to "change" than the goody-two-shoes-brigade? _

_But there was one person I wanted to prove this "change" to more than anyone else. Yep. You guessed it. Granger. _

_I don't think I could never apologize to her. It would be too damn mortifying, and I would never have the guts to do it. But maybe if I could let her forget…_

_Merlin, that sounded fucking awful. This is _all_ bullshit. I don't even know if I'm going to send this to you anymore. _

_Whatever. Don't call me loony, mate. Half of this probably won't even make sense to you. Hell, half of this probably doesn't make sense to _me_. But it's happening, and it may be some serious shit, but it's happening. I don't know where it's going to go. I don't know what I'm going to do about it. But I had to tell someone. Any advice you would like to bequeath to me with would be much-appreciated._

_Hang in there, wherever you are.  
>Draco<em>

' ' '

A letter from Blaise Zabini to Draco Malfoy, dated May 23rd, 2001

_Draco,_

_ That is some seriously fucked up shit._

_ All I have to say is: good luck, don't die, and don't fall in love. You know that's what always happens in the end. I'm just warning you now. _

_Blaise_

' ' '

March 27th, 2002

There was something to be said for falling in love. Sure, there were a million songs in the world telling of its suckiness. Sure, millions of characters in books have killed or caused themselves bodily harm over love. And there were many times when it seemed like it wasn't worth it anymore—that it would just be easiest to take a step back and ignore that lovely feeling that creeps around one's heart and pulls at the fraying strands of one's sanity. But honestly, who in the history of the entire world ever expected love to be easy?

And so it was for Draco. Life would have been so much easier if he had never gone to St. Mungo's to see her that forever ago, or volunteered to take Harry's place as her caregiver, or climbed into bed with her that February night almost two months ago. But he made those decisions. And despite the conflict they created within himself, with Order members (especially Ginny, of course), and occasionally Hermione herself, he found that he didn't regret a single one of them.

It was a nice feeling. Not regretting one's actions.

And perhaps he _should_ have regretted kissing her. Kissing her twice. Kissing her so long that his mouth grew dry and he had trouble drawing breath when they reluctantly pulled free of each other. And maybe she regretted kissing him back so hard that he got dizzy and nearly fell off the counter.

Though obviously it hadn't started to bother her yet. He was sort of worried for when it would. And it would; it was an inevitability. She was going to start thinking and doubting and getting confused. Draco was just hoping that time would come sooner rather than later. Maybe he was being selfish. But he was in love. And they were kissing again.

He wasn't even sure who started it this time. Last night after they had drawn away after the second kiss, they'd both looked shell-shocked, like they weren't sure about what just happened. And then the silence broke as Hermione said, "I guess it's dinner time."

Draco had blinked, surprised. "Dinner?"

"It's four o'clock," she answered, pointing to the pulsing face of the microwave screen. "Spaghetti, do you think?"

The night went on like that, as if nothing had every happened—except for when she stopped every hour or so to check how he was feeling. The only change came when the climbed into bed, as they did nearly every other night, and after a brief hesitation she leaned over him and kissed his cheek. "Good night, Draco," she'd murmured, and there was something unnameable in her voice that hadn't been there before.

When he woke up the next morning the blonde was overjoyed to find that Hermione was holding on as tightly to him as he was to her—the only difference being that her arms were wrapped around his waist and his, around her shoulders. Draco felt her stir, blinking away the sleep, and he couldn't help but smile despite the aching pain that came back in his side.

"_You are my sunshine_," she whisper-sang into his neck, a muggle tune that he'd never heard before. "_My only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are grey. You'll never know dear…" _her voice faded until it was just-barely audible. "_how much I love you. Please don't take, my sunshine away._" Hermione chuckled softly. "You know Draco, the first time I saw you, way back to our first Order meeting together, I thought your hair glowed. It was like a halo—the first beautiful thing I caught a glimpse of since I left St. Mungo's."

"I'm glad I was able to service you so," Draco replied, struggling with just that response. The song, combined with the fact that the brunette was currently running the edge of her thumb in small circles on his back was distracting his mind elsewhere.

"Me too," she said, looking up.

Maybe Draco leaned down first, or maybe Hermione tilted her head up before that—he couldn't seem to recall the order of it. All he knew for sure that in the next moment their lips were touching and neither really minded that they hadn't showered or changed or even brushed their teeth yet. It didn't seem to matter.

Their mouths moved together in perfect harmony—a clichéd line if there ever was one, but it made sense. There was hardly another way to describe it. And if Draco thought their first kiss was perfect then he would have to make a new addition to the English language simply to describe the third.

It was different from the first two because of their proximity. Just the simple—or maybe not so simple?—fact that they were in a bed, and that they were wrapped so closely around each other made all Draco's senses heighten considerably, and he was aware of every single movement, every touch, every sensation. And it all sent delicious shivers running down his back.

_What if I wanted to stay like this forever?_ he wondered. _How long do you think I'd last? A week? Two weeks? Probably more,_ he decided as Hermione's hands pulled his waist closer to hers. The pressure on Draco's wound bothered it more than he would care to admit, but he wasn't in the right state of mind to prevent it. It was only when Hermione began trying to pull him on top of her that he winced.

Immediately she broke the kiss. "I'm sorry," she said. "I completely forgot. How insensitive of me."

"I'm perfectly fine. Just a bit sore," Draco said. But to his dismay this did not seem to calm her—instead, the brunette sat up, pushing her hair out of her eyes and straightening her camisole (which was riding up dangerously high over her stomach. He tried not to stare; he really did).

"Let me see. You might need more of that salve," the former-Gryffindor urged him. "Didn't they give you anything back at Grimmauld Place?"

Draco shrugged. "I forgot the potions on the way here."

"It would probably be a good idea if you got them back. What I gave you is only for the pain—it's not going to heal anything."

"I can wait a while," the blonde protested, leaning in to kiss her quickly on the lips.

"No, honestly Draco. I insist. Go and grab them. I'll stay here and make breakfast."

"You, cooking?" he chuckled.

She blushed slightly. "I haven't completely forgotten."

"Just teasing," Draco said lightly. "Are you sure you want me to go?"

"You'll come back, won't you?" she asked, and the blonde couldn't be sure whether she was joking or not.

"Of course," he said, leaning over to kiss her lightly on the forehead. "Don't burn down the flat while I'm gone."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Hermione said, watching him leave the room, expression unreadable.

"Oh look," Ginny said, crossing her arms and glowering in her special Weasley way. "Ferret-face has decided to show up. Tell me, Malfoy, how's your side faring?"

"Bloody brilliant, Weasley," Draco replied, tone venomous. "The pain's dulled considerably, thanks for asking. Now if you don't mind—" he moved to get past her, farther into the hall and from there, to his room where Parvati had put his potions, assuming he was staying the night before.

She stepped aside grudgingly but followed him into the house. "So how _was_ last night? I can't imagine it was very pleasant, considering how you were completely without your potions. Were you in crippling pain the entire time?"

"Nope, not at all," he said. "Hermione actually had a few things at her flat that helped me out a bit. And I assure you, it was nothing less than pleasurable," the former-Slytherin added as an afterthought, grinning at his own private joke.

He could hear it in Ginny's voice that she had narrowed her eyes. "What did you do?" the redheaded witch demanded. "Please tell me you didn't do something stupid."

Her reaction was to be expected, Draco supposed, but that didn't mean it hurt any less. "No, of course not." But the comment got him thinking. What if he _had _done something stupid? What if it was the completely _wrong _choice to kiss Hermione? What if Ginny was right, and all he managed to accomplish by kissing her was confusing her even more than she probably already was? Well, of course she would be confused, but what if by kissing her he completely _demolished_ their perfectly platonic relationship? But he had told her he was going to, right out loud—he even gave her an opportunity to stop him! She still did not push him away. That had to mean something.

They made it to his room without passing any other Order members—strange, Draco thought. Usually by this time the place was buzzing with members doing their daily chores or assignments.

Ginny stopped at the doorway, keeping her arms crossed and cocking her hip to one side. "There's something in your tone that suggests you did something stupid."

Draco would rather have ripped his arm from its socket than admit she was right—no matter how much he was starting to thinking of her as a powerful, admirable witch and not a blood-traitor. _Just because you prefer someone to stay alive alive doesn't mean you want them in your hair every waking minute,_ he reasoned. "Everything between me and Hermione is peachy-keen," the blonde informed her as he plucked the vials off the desk, and she snorted.

"I'm sure it is," Ginny said as he pocketed the potions. "Back to seclusion with her, then? No chance of her coming out to see the rest of her _family_, is she?"

Draco gave her a strange look. "Hermione's family is all dead now, Weasley. How could you have forgotten?"

The redhead scoffed. "You don't have to be blood-related to be _family_, Malfoy. Though I don't expect you to understand."

"Fine," the former-Slytherin said, beginning to get pissed. "Shut me out. Shut me out because the one good thing that's happened in my life is starting to show signs of caring for me in return—"

"That has nothing to do with anything right now, and you know it—"

"But it does," Draco said. "You're being petty, turning your back on me because I'm _happy_ for once."

"I'm being _reasonable_ because you're being _selfish _and _foolish!_" Ginny retorted, her voice an octave higher than was normal. "I'm all for the power of true love—even now—but now's not the time to test its limits, or Hermione's. If you haven't noticed, we're fighting a fucking war."

"Of course I've noticed," Draco snarled.

"Then act like it! All of us are just as willing as you to help Hermione through the trauma and grief she's still going through, and all of us need as much help as we can get. You're depriving us of an extra hand just by spending time with her. And you're shutting her off from everyone."

"Good bye, Weasley," he said curtly in reply, masking his anger and mixed emotions under a stoic expression and pushing past her out into the hallway. "I'll be back for the next meeting."

"Don't you dare walk away from me _now_, Malfoy—" Ginny began, racing after him and reaching for his sleeve, but he swiftly dodged her fingers.

"Give everyone my… my well-wishes," he said over his shoulder, apparating as soon as he got to the front hallway, back to Hermione's flat where another confrontation was no-doubt awaiting him.

' ' '

January 3rd, 2002

_Malfoy?_

_What, Potter?_

_I want an honest answer. A seriously honest answer._

What?

_Do you love her?_

_Who?_

_You know bloody well who I'm talking about._

…

_You sound like you're thinking pretty hard about this._

… _I… I care about her. More than I probably should._

_Yeah, that's obvious. But do you _love _her?_

_Why are you so interes—_

_No reason. But it would make me feel better, if you did._

Really?_ Your girlfriend abhors the idea of it. I would have thought you'd feel the same, especially since she was dating Weasley and everything._

_I'm not sure how I feel about you and her _together_, I guess. But I like the idea that someone loves her as much as Ron did._

_Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves Potter—_

_Would you die for her?_

_What kind of a question is that?_

_It's a pretty simple one—yes or no answer. Would you die for her?_

_Potter. I'm a Sltyherin. Self-preservation is as much a part of us as our pureblood._

_That's technically not an answer to my question._

…

…

_Alright, yes. I'm pretty sure I would die for her._

_Good._

_Why?_

_You know. It's just nice to have some insurance._

_Why? Why would she need insurance when she's got you?_

…

' ' '

March 27th, 2002

Draco knocked three times on the door, another grin sprawled over his face. He was already taking off his cloak when Hermione opened the door, the delicious smell of scrambled eggs flowing past her. A faint smile played with the corner of her lips.

"Good morning again, Hermione," he greeted jovially. He'd been thinking about the wonderful day they'd have together now that his feelings were perfectly clear, his argument with Ginny just a fleeting memory.

"Good morning, Draco. Got all you needed?"

"Yes ma'am," the blonde said as she stepped inside to let him in. "I'll take a vial after I've got some food in my stomach. Mm," he commented. "I smell eggs."

"I burned the first pan," she told him as they walked into the kitchen. "Couldn't quite remember how long they were supposed to be on the stove for, and by then they were already smoking."

Draco laughed. "Well, these smell perfect," he complimented, heading towards the cupboard and pulling out two plates and silverware. "Would you like orange juice?" he called to Hermione, who was sifting through the drawers for a pot holder.

"Yes, please," she said, setting the eggs down on the counter.

After the table was set and the two were sitting side by side, their plate of eggs steaming before them, Draco began speaking again. "So, Hermione. What would you like to do today? We could finish that Bronte book, or take a walk in the park—it's warmer than usual for March—or, if you'd rather—"

She interrupted him quite suddenly, dropping her fork and saying, "What are we doing, Draco?"

He gave her a strange look. "Eating breakfast," he answered, scrutinizing her face for any strange expression.

"No, I mean what are we doing? With us?"

"I'm not following you," Draco said slowly.

"You kissed me last night. You kissed me this morning. Why?"

He snorted. "I would have thought that was obvious."

"It doesn't make sense. I wasn't even the crazy one last night, believe it or not. Why did _I _even kiss _you_ _back_?" She seemed to be talking to herself, but it still stung. "I was so pissed at you! You were a complete ass, injured or not, going and leaving me in the dead of night like you did. Why did I kiss you? _Why did I—_"

"Hermione!" Draco interrupted her, turning her to face him and look him straight in the eye. Finally, he was beginning to understand how utterly self-centred he'd been, diving in without making sure she was okay with it, when she had probably been just as dazed and befuddled as he had by the tension of the situation. It sickened him as he realised how much she must have been torturing herself over it all, even in the few minutes he'd been gone. "I'm sorry I kissed you. I would take it back if I could. I would have never have done it if I thought you wouldn't want me to."

"But there's the next bit!" she said, throwing her arms up in the air and out of Draco's grasp. "I didn't mind it! I didn't mind it in the least! In fact, I have the strangest urge to kiss you right this second!"

His eyebrows shot up towards his hairline. Hermione didn't seem to notice.

"It doesn't make any sense at all." She slid off the stool and began pacing. "None. I miss Ron so much, all the time. When I think about his death I want to scream and cry and hex something. I think about him and my heart feels like someone's trying to wring out all the blood. We were going to get married. I loved him—I _love_ him."

Draco's own heart deflated as she said this.

"I would wake up every morning with him on my mind, either the good memories or the worse ones. I used to have to try so hard just to shove all my nightmares away so I could just _function_. But you've changed it, Draco." Her words were now directed at him. "_This_ morning all I could think about was how you kissed me last night and how it felt and how I wanted to do it again. You make me forget, and when I finally remember I find it doesn't hurt nearly as much anymore."

"Hermione, I—"

"You—all of you—you're like a memory charm and a healing potion all at the same time. I can't figure out if it's an antidote or a poison in disguise. I would ask you, but I suppose you're a bit biased. Or maybe you're not." Hermione suddenly whipped around to meet his gaze, fierce determination glittering in her irises. "You never answered my question before. Why did you kiss me?"

It took a minute for Draco to find his voice. "I wanted to. I've _been _wanting to. I told you last night, that all I could think about when I was about to die was that I wouldn't ever be able to kiss you."

"But _why?_ Why me? What did I do?"

She made it sound like she had done something horribly wrong to deserve the great punishment of Draco's lips on hers. It hurt, no matter how hard he tried to push away the pain.

Right at that moment Draco decided to do something he would probably regret later. He was going to tell her all of it. He was going to lay himself across the road and hope that she'd be the one to pull him off and not the one to run him over. Because she needed to understand.

"You know how you were in St. Mungo's for days after you were cursed?"

Hermione nodded slowly, not quite sure where he would take this.

"I came to visit you every day—that is, until Weasley made me come less. I sat there next to your hospital bed and talked to you every single day. And when I went to your first Order meeting after you'd woken up—"

"You were there. When I feel asleep and started screaming, you pulled me towards you and… you held me."

Draco nodded. "And then, when Potter… couldn't take care of you anymore, I took over."

"You even started out kind. I never understood that," Hermione commented softly, and he chuckled.

"Well… I don't—I don't know what it happened… but… well, maybe it was a process, maybe it took a while… but sometime in between then… a-and now…"

"Yes?"

Draco took a deep breath and blurted it out all at once. "I fell in love with you."

Instantly Hermione's gaze darted to the side, not just her cheeks but her neck and forehead glowing a charming red shade. "No. That's impossible. You couldn't love me."

"It's true!" he insisted, jumping up from his stool and rushing towards her to take her hands in his.

"How could you love me?" she demanded. "I've done nothing for you. I've sucked up your time and interrupted your sleep and been downright rude sometimes, swearing and screaming at you like a banshee on occasion, and made you cook and clean for me—"

"I chose to do those," he interjected.

"It doesn't matter. You still did them. I made your life hell these past months, and now you're telling me that somehow you fell in love with me along the way?"

"I may not know when exactly it happened," Draco said quietly, "But I know I loved you before I even came here." Before she could protest he added with a grin—"And for the record, my life has been anything but hell since I managed to worm my way into yours."

Hermione shook her head stubbornly. "You're just trying to be kind by lying. But it's an awful lie you're telling."

He was stunned. _How could she think such a thing?_ "I'm not lying, Hermione," the blonde told her, his voice rough and tone determined. "Would you like me to prove it to you?"

"How do you suppose to d—" But Hermione was completely cut off as he seized her by the shoulders and crashed his lips into hers.

Draco kissed her so hard he was worried for a moment that he was bruising her lips but she didn't seem to care, as she was currently running her fingers exquisitely through his hair, and she didn't appear to mind in the least that he was forcing her mouth open with his and lightly swiping his tongue over her teeth—he could still taste the trace of mint from when she brushed while he was gone—and she acted nowhere near as if she wanted him to stop since she was now clawing at his back and tugging at his shirt in a manner that made his body burn and flush.

It made the blonde lightheaded and dazed, seeing and feeling Hermione's reaction as it was completely unexpected, the degree of her enthusiasm. Draco couldn't process his thoughts and couldn't remember where he ought and ought not to put his hands and couldn't even think straight enough to consider his _own _feelings at the moment, much less Hermione's. All that existed in his mind at the moment was the feeling of her lips pressed against his and her hair and skin underneath his fingertips. His wound—and the fact that he hadn't taken his proper healing potions in more than twenty four hours—had completely escaped his thoughts.

Without thinking—it was not a time to be thinking at all—he reached for the bottom of her camisole and tugged it upwards. She made no move to stop him and somehow without even breaking their fevered kiss the garment was pulled over her head and tossed to the floor, leaving her clad in pyjama pants and a skin-coloured bra. Draco slowly prodded Hermione backward towards the couch in the living room, gently sweeping his fingertips along her bare sides—dear Merlin, he could still feel her ribs, even after months of forcing her to eat—and pushing her back onto the cushions, abandoning her lips and instead trailing his kisses down her jaw, down her throat, towards her chest and in between her breasts.

Hermione was breathing hard, her chest heaving and her breath fanning over his hair while her fingers knotted in his silvery-blonde locks, bringing him closer. "Draco," she started whispering, over and over again. Her skin was as hot as his, and his name on her lips was a whole genre of music of its own.

Slowly but surely, the pain of his wound began to build, but Draco was too preoccupied to notice. And when he finally did, he couldn't seem to find the right motivation to care. All he could think of was Hermione—Hermione, shirtless underneath him, Hermione, whispering his name so lovingly, Hermione, slender fingers curled in his hair. At the moment she was very much like how _she _had described _him_ just a few minutes earlier—a memory charm and a healing potion, designed to confused him, make him forget, but at the same time make everything feel infinitely better.

It wasn't until Draco began to curl his body inward to trail his kisses farther towards Hermione's navel that the urgent discomfort in his side turned to real, biting pain. But even then he continued his ministrations until the throbbing could no longer be ignored and he sat up quite suddenly, seeing stars as a hoarse cry ripping itself from his throat.

"Draco!" Hermione exclaimed, his shout of pain thrusting her back into the reality in which Draco was injured, Draco was in pain, Draco needed his own healing which she had been depriving him of.

The former-Gryffindor watched in horror as he fell back onto the couch, letting out a strangled moan, clutching his side and shaking violently, as if he were having a seizure.

"Good God, what have I done?" she gasped, pulling herself from the couch and sprinting to his cloak on the coat rack. "Hold on, Draco, it'll just take a moment—" Unsure of what vial he really needed she grabbed all six of them, hastening back to the couch and kneeling in front of his curled form. His beautiful face was scrunched up, his eyes squeezed shut, every muscle in his body tense in an effort to fend off the pain. He quivered with the effort of it. She'd never seen him like this before—not weak, per se, but… unable to help himself, rather.

"Draco," Hermione said, trying to keep his voice calm. "I don't know what you need. You will have to show me. Can you open your eyes and show me?"

His eyelids cracked open a fraction and he curled his fingers around one of the vials with one hand while the other hand held his side. "This one," the blonde croaked.

Without hesitating Hermione broke the wax seal of the vial. "Do you drink the whole thing?" she asked, and he nodded, the rest of his body rigid and trembling.

"Stay still please, Draco," Hermione pleaded, climbing onto the couch to crouch beside him. Gingerly, she grabbed his jaw and pulled forcefully down, making him open his mouth even though his teeth fought to clench together. The former-Gryffindor poured the entire contents of the vial down his throat, watching carefully for the movement of his throat to signal he was swallowing.

When he was finished, Draco fell to the side into Hermione, the side of his head colliding with her sternum. She tossed the vial to the side and cradled his head against her chest, trying to calm his shaking. Pained moans rumbled in the back of Draco's throat and she ran her hands through his hair, whispering words to calm him.

"Shh Draco. It's okay. You have your potion now. It'll be alright. God, I'm so sorry Draco. I should have remembered—"

He ran his thumb over her forearm in an attempt to calm her. "It's more my fault than yours," he murmured. "I kissed you first. I ignored my injury."

"Doesn't matter," Hermione insisted. "I was stupid and wasn't thinking. I'm sorry I hurt you."

"You didn't hurt me. This ridiculous curse did," the blonde told her soothingly. "I'm okay now, anyway."

"For now," Hermione muttered, and they sat there for a long while, the brunette stroking his hair while Draco trembled and attempted to calm his breathing, recovering more from the spasms or their kissing he could not be sure.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

So... yeah, no sex. It _will _happen, rest assured, just not now. Hope you're not too disappointed... ;) In other news, not only am I not tragically late, I'm also bordering on early. Yay! I am completely surprised at myself because despite having about twenty pages down of future content, I wrote this whole chapter from scratch except for the letters in the beginning.

This chappie makes _three_ Ingrid Michaelson songs. Usually when I write song-based stuff, I try to avoid repeat-artists, but I really wanted to have the chapter title "Maybe" because of the amount of times it pops up. I narrowed it down to three-Ingrid Michaelson, Sick Puppies, and Secondhand Serenade. I ended up going with Ingrid, obviously. And I don't own the lyrics-or any of the ones I used, for that matter.

A big thanks to all of those people who reviewed/favourited/alerted, you are all incredibly amazing. Reviews motivate me, but I will never hold back a chapter because no one reviews :) Thanks to all my readers, you all are lovely ^_^ ~Gen


	10. Resistance

**Resistance  
><strong>"_Our hearts will love again."  
><em>Everlife

* * *

><p><span>March 27<span>th, 2002

It took Draco a few moments to realise that he'd fallen asleep, and a few more moments to notice his current position; how he was leaning against Hermione, his face buried in the crook of her neck, while her right arm curled around his body and her fingers combed through his hair. The former-Slytherin did not open his eyes—it was a lovely feeling, nestled against her side, and he was worried that once he alerted her he was awake it would end.

Hermione must have felt the change in his breathing or the way his body tensed, though, because she leaned very close to his ear and whispered, "Good morning, sleeping beauty."

Draco groaned and began to sit up, thinking he'd better just get it over with. The blonde could feel the small patch of pain in his side but nothing close to the agony he experienced the night before. Hermione, however, must have been thinking along his same lines as she began pulling him back against her. "Don't get up yet. Just rest. Close your eyes. Maybe take a nap."

He had to smile. "Say, Hermione, are you inviting me to sleep with you?" Draco said cheekily.

Her tone of voice told him she was blushing. "Twisting my words now, Draco?"

He settled back into the crook of her arm, pressing his cheek against her breastbone. "You're the one who gave me something to twist," the blonde reasoned, and Hermione chuckled.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him seriously, and he shrugged. "Better than before."

"But still hurt?"

"Just a little."

Hermione sighed. "Do you know how long it'll take for that wound to heal?"

"Parvati said if I take a vial every twelve hours, the constant pain should disappear in a week. It'll heal completely in about a fortnight." By wizard standards, when one could heal a broken bone with a quick charm, staunch blood loss with a few incantations, and close up most wounds with a flick of a wand, a fortnight was an eternity.

"You were an idiot, Draco," Hermione informed him. "Coming to see me when you should have been taking your potions."

"What can I say?" he said, a joking smile curling along his lips. "You're irresistible."

"I'm serious," the brunette replied. "You should have stayed with Parvati."

"I couldn't leave you alone."

"I'm a big girl."

"You slapped me across the face the moment I walked through the door. Imagine if I was, say, four hours later?"

She blushed again. "I'm sorry I did that."

"Don't be," Draco murmured, reaching for her hand resting on her lap and intertwining their fingers. "I shouldn't have lied to you."

"I don't know what came over me," Hermione continued, sliding her thumb back and forth across his hand absent-mindedly. "While you were gone I was so worried and frightened for you and confused and lost. I just sat on this couch the whole time, waiting for you to come home. But after I saw you, I was so _angry _at you for leaving me I—it just sort of came out."

"You don't need to apologise to me," Draco insisted. "I understand. I would have done the same thing. Well, I would have if you were a bloke, at least. I don't hit girls." The joking tone in his voice was back, and this time Hermione didn't plead seriousness.

"You promise me you'll never leave me like that again?" she asked.

"I promise," he replied dutifully.

"Good," she muttered, and kissed the top of his head.

' ' '

June 24th, 2001

_He stood at the doorway, tragically beautiful in a way that can only be achieved by those who have the world resting on their shoulders. His dark hair fell dashingly over his green eyes, framed by glasses that had perched on his nose for more than two decades now. _Good God, are we really that old?_ It was strange—on one hand, she could remember the first day the met like it happened just yesterday, but on the other, it seemed like they'd aged at least three times as fast since the start of this damned war._

_He watched her carefully, as if she could not see him. But she could always see him. Sometimes, Hermione felt as if she could see him clearer than she could see herself. He wore his heart on his sleeve. She liked that of him, especially now that she lived in a world where deception was a regular part of life._

"_Good morning, Hermione," Harry Potter said softly, finally walking up to meet her on the bed. "Planning to get up soon?"_

_The brunette didn't reply, instead simply burrowing further into the blankets. She curled up, hugging her knees to her chest, so tightly that she made it seem like she would completely fall apart if she let herself. It broke his heart, seeing her like this, in so much pain. Nearly three months had passed since Ron's death, and it seemed like things were only getting worse._

_Harry pulled back the blankets and settled in beside Hermione, pulling her over a bit so they were connected by the hips and her back leaned against him. He could feel her breathe, could feel the work and labour put into each breath._

_They lay like that for many minutes, neither saying a word, making no sound apart from the gentle thrum of their breaths._

_Finally, Hermione spoke, voice wrought with an unimaginable pain. "It hurts. Dammit, Harry, why does it hurt so much? Why won't it all just go away? Why can't I _make _it go away?"_

"_I don't know. I don't know." He said it twice, and his voice was tight with anxiety and distress._

"_I know you're trying," she told him. "I wish it would help."_

"_Me too."_

"_Why can't I just die like this? Lying here, in the arms of my best friend in the entire world? It would make such a better story."_

"_Hermione, stop thinking like that. Things will get better. I promise."_

_Hermione ignored him. "In books, everyone gets a happy ending. What if my happy ending is giving up?" _

"_Stop it, Hermione," Harry demanded, tightening his grip around her._

_She shifted a bit so she faced the ceiling and goes on as if he never said anything at all. "I mean, that makes a better story. The heroine dies tragically after the death of her most-loved. Better than the heroine suffering nightmare after nightmare and horror after horror and then dying at an old age, completely broken."_

"_You're not going to be broken forever."_

"_Looks like it right now," Hermione said. "I can't even _close my fucking eyes anymore_. I can't blink for longer than two seconds or else I see their faces on the insides of my eyelids. And they're so damn beautiful, but they're dead." She breaks free of his grasp and sits up. "They're fucking _dead_ Harry! They're fucking _dead_, and I can't do a bloody fucking thing about it!"_

_He sat up and grabbed her shoulders. "Listen to me. I promise you on my _life_, Hermione, you will get better."_

"_How?" she pleaded. "Tell me how, please, so I can end it!"_

"_I—I can't tell you. You have to find out on your own, or it won't work."_

"_THEN YOU MIGHT AS WELL KILL ME NOW!" Hermione shrieked. "_KILL ME, HARRY!_" she yelled, jumping off the bed before he could stop her. He was after her in a heartbeat though, following her as she staggered towards her vanity and punched the mirror with all the strength she had. Glass flew everywhere, and Harry shielded his face with his forearm, feeling the biting shards graze his skin. _

_When he lowered his arm, he saw that Hermione collapsed on the floor, clutching a jagged piece in her bloodied hand. He rushed forward and attempted to pry the shard from her, but the more he tried the more she tightened her grip, cutting her palm even more deeply. _

"_Go ahead," Hermione hissed, looking absolutely feral—a complete one-eighty from the exact picture of hopelessness she painted minutes earlier. "Struggle long enough, and maybe I'll lose enough blood."_

_Instantly Harry sprung away, holding his hands up._

_He stared at her carefully, watching to see what her next move would be. She stayed frozen for many long, agonizing seconds, but eventually the former-Gryffindor dropped the shard and before Harry could leap forward to catch her, she fell sideways onto the floor, into the battlefield of fallen glass soldiers. _

"_Hermione!"_

_Her cry of pain sent a skewer through his heart, and he pulled her from the glass, desperately drew his wand from his pocket, shouting random incantations for fixing and healing as he rocked held her in his arms on the floor of the bedroom._

"_Make it stop," Hermione moaned. "Jesus Christ, make it stop."_

"_I'm trying, I'm trying," Harry said again, tapping all her wounds with the tip of his wand, healing them instantly. _

"_I can still feel… the pain," she sighed. "All I want is to not feel it anymore. When you kill me Harry, please make sure it doesn't hurt."_

"_I'm not going to kill you, Hermione," Harry said sternly. "Get a grip on yourself."_

"_What is left of me to grip onto?" she whispered, and to that, Harry had no answer._

' ' '

March 28th, 2002

Draco woke up the the next morning to the feeling of soft fingertips being touched gently to his lips.

His waking must have scared her, for the fingers jumped bit. He cracked open one eye and peered out to see what was going on.

They were still on the couch, only this time they were sitting up—Draco was spread out along it and Hermione tucked herself between him and the back cushions, leaning on an elbow with her head in her palm so she could lean over him. She was currently holding one hand to her chest, still curled as it was when it brushed over his lips.

"Sorry," she said breathily. "That was presumptuous of me."

"I don't really mind when you're presumptuous," he said honestly, "If it means you're going to touch me."

Hermione blushed. "I'm trying to take small steps, you know?"

"That explains why you nearly snogged me senseless two nights ago," he teased.

She slapped him lightly across the chest and he winced. "Oops. That was instinctual. Sorry."

"So now it's instinctual for you to want to touch me?"

"It's instinctual for me to hit you whenever you're being a twat," she replied, a joking lilt to her voice.

"Aah. Though I don't really see the difference."

"Of course you don't."

' ' '

June 29th, 2001

_Ginny?_

_Yes, love?_

_I'm sorry I haven't been home these past few days._

_It's alright._

_I'm sorry I'm never around anymore. _

_It's alright._

_I'm sorry I don't kiss you as much as I used to._

_It's alright._

_I'm sorry you're stuck with Malfoy so much._

_It's alright._

_I'm sorry—_

_Go to sleep Harry, before you make me cry._

' ' '

April 7th, 2002

"Draco?"

"Mm?"

The pair was sitting at the kitchen counter, sharing a plate of scrambled eggs. Draco was paging through one of Hermione's old Potion's essays. The day before they had found a stack of assignments from when they were in school while attempting to clean her room again, and he had been whipping through them ever since.

"Where has Harry been?" she asked. Over the past few days Hermione had been thinking about her best friend quite a bit. She found herself wondering how Harry would take their tentative relationship, and what he was getting up to right at that moment. Draco had never said anything about the other man's whereabouts in all the months they'd spent together.

He looked up from the piece of parchment held in his hands. "He's been away for a while, on Order business, remember?"

"But no one knows where he is?"

"No," the blonde said, which was true. No one _did _know where Harry Potter was.

"Do you know when he's coming back?"

Draco _did _know when he was coming back, but that didn't mean he was going to tell Hermione. He hated keeping things from her, but he wasn't going to say anything when she seemed so happy lately.

"No," he lied. "I don't know when he's coming back. I'm sure Dumbledore or Weasley does, though."

"He's not doing anything stupid, is he, do you think?"

He shrugged, trying to look as nonchalant as possible, but he feared his shoulders were too stiff. "I highly doubt it. Potter's a big, smart boy who is very capable of taking care of himself."

Hermione didn't say anything reply—instead she just stared at her eggs, brow slightly furrowed with thoughtfulness.

Draco broke the silence. "This is really advanced stuff, Hermione," he told her, gesturing to the old essay. "Fantastic." He glanced at her sideways. "Snape never docked you for… irrelevant things, did he?"

She chuckled. "He couldn't really do anything but take house points from me. I think it probably would have killed him to give me anything less than an Exceeds Expectations, muggle-born or not." She said it very matter-of-factly, as if just knowing she was the best was enough, and no longer felt the need to rub it in anymore.

"I can see why. I mean, I would never have thought of this. Putting tarantula eyes in sleeping potions—that's just plain brilliant."

Hermione shrugged. "I suppose."

He flipped through to one of her History of Magic papers. "Eugh. I hated this class."

"Who didn't?"

"You're the only person I can remember who never once fell asleep in all six years of taking that class. And your notes… Merlin, they were always perfect. Used to make me go green with jealousy."

"My notes?" She cocked one eyebrow. "I didn't know you saw my notes."

"Are you kidding me?" he laughed. "You know, Zacharias Smith used to sneak them from your messenger bag during breakfast, make doubles of them, and then sell them for three sickles each before the exams. It nearly killed me to do it, but I used them to pass my herbology exam."

"You're joking," Hermione said, startled.

"Nope."

"That's ridiculous!" she exclaimed. "I would have charged at _least_ five!"

Draco exploded into laughter, clutching his side.

"Merlin, Draco, don't kill yourself," Hermione said, half concerned and half teasing.

The former-Slytherin turned thoughtful once he calmed down. "I remember being so tired of school during O.W.L.'s. All I wanted to do was get out of there." He leaned onto his palm and stared down at the sheet of parchment in his hands. "Now I would do anything to go back."

Hermione poked at the eggs on her plate. "I would want to go back no matter what we were doing right now. Hogwarts was like a second home for me."

"Hogwarts was as close to a home as I ever got."

' ' '

April 15th, 2002

The surprisingly bright light of Hermione's desk lamp stunned Draco into consciousness. He blinked rapidly and shielded his eyes, sitting up in bed. The first thing he did was glance at the alarm clock on Hermione's bedside table. _Three fucking thirty in the morning_, he thought, disgruntled.

"Love, what are you doing?" he moaned, looking towards her desk. She was hunched over the wooden surface, the sound of a fast-moving pen loud in the otherwise quiet room.

"I just realised something important," the brunette informed him.

"And what would that be?"

"So, any normal person walking past us on the street would probably say we're 'together', right?"

"I'm sensing air-quotes." Then Draco wanted to hit himself. _Of course she doesn't want to think of it that way yet—Ron's not even been gone a year! _Forming words of concern, he opened his mouth, but then immediately shut it when she continued speaking.

"Well, we don't really know each other, do we? Not enough to consider us serious." He stared at her, dumb-founded. _This _was what she was worried about? "You've 'fallen in love with me' in the span of less than a year, and all that time I was half-crazy with grief and living like a zombie or sleeping."

Draco got up from the bed and approached her from behind. "I know everything I need to know," the blonde said, bending down to kiss her tied-back curls. "For example, you're smart." His lips brushed over the back of her neck. "And you're incredibly kind." He pressed his lips to the skin between her shoulder blades. "And you make my day with your attempts at humour." He pecked the corner of her ear. "And you're absolutely beautiful," he finished, kissing her lovingly on the cheek.

She scoffed. "I may not be ugly, but I know for sure that I am not beautiful. Lying doesn't make me feel any better."

"I'm not lying."

"Whatever. But still, that's all part of the _big _picture," Hermione argued. "Once things go back to normal, you might decide that you hate all my strange habits or weird tastes or awfulness at some things. It's unfair to let you go on like this when you have no idea what you're getting yourself into."

"Oh really? And how do you suppose to fix this awful injustice?"

"I'm compiling a list of my faults or things I don't think you'll like. I'll present it to you when I'm done, and then you can decide if you still… want me."

He laughed. "Hermione, you're not going to be able to make me not love you anymore. That kind of thing is pretty much irreversible."

"You don't know that. And besides, it'll make me feel better. More honest."

Draco sighed. "Okay, I'll read your list. But does that lamp have any lower setting?"

"No."

He sighed again. "Guess I'm stuck with my head stuffed under a pillow for the next five hours."

"Guess so."

"Good night."

"Technically it's good morning."

"Just be a good sport and say goodnight to me, Hermione."

"Good night, Draco."

' ' '

"It's finished," Hermione proclaimed, brandishing the list from her pocket and nearly shoving it under Draco's nose.

He cracked open one eyelid, his vision blurry with sleep. He sat up and yawned, stretching his arms over his head. "What time is it?"

"Seven fifty two, exactly," she informed him, and he took the list while rubbing his eye with the heel of his other hand.

"Dear Merlin!" Draco said. "Your handwriting is _small_."

"I needed to fit it all on one piece of parchment."

He flipped it over. "There's a back, too?"

"I'm a very flawed person, Draco. You read, I'll make breakfast."

"Alright, alright."

He scanned through it. She even numbered it!

_5. I forget to brush my hair sometimes._

_13. I am too sentimental._

_17. I will _never_ get on a broom. Ever._

_21. Occasionally I forget to wash behind my ears when I shower._

_27. My hair looks atrocious in the morning._

_33. I will steal your clothes and wear them often and probably never give them back until they no longer fit me. _

_39. I will make you read books and watch films and eat things you may find deplorable._

_45. I will never take out the garbage. Or dry the dishes. Or dust. Or unclog the toilet or sink or bathtub._

_49. I will insist on always being right. _

_56. I am liable to smack you upside the head when you're being a twat._

_57. Or I might just threaten hex your testicles off._

_58. I may also threaten your testicles if you interrupt me while I read a good book._

He grinned.

_64. I will stay up late reading and refuse to turn down the light._

_70. I am stubborn as a mule. _

_76. I will make you brush your teeth three times a day and will not let you have too many sweets._

He recalled that her parents were dentists.

_83. I will often bore you with long soliloquys on my latest obsessions._

_88. I hold a mean grudge._

_94. I am very high-maintenance when ill._

_95. I will make you dispose of all my tissues when I've got a cold instead of just putting the rubbish bin next to my bed like a normal person. _

_96. I will make you make me chicken-noddle soup._

_101. I get awful cramps and PMS and may bite your head off during my special week. _

_112. I have a weird birthmark on my upper right thigh._

_117. I sing loudly and obnoxiously in the shower._

_122. I bite and tear up my lips a lot. _

_126. I will go out of my way to prove a point and that you're wrong and I'm right (which I'll always be)._

_134. I like to eat things straight out of their containers, germs be damned._

_139. I refuse to take showers at night during the winter. I will go to bed smelling awful and wait until morning._

And then, the last one, which made him smile:

_148. I will never ever _ever_ let us get a house elf. I will eat a rat's tail, eyeball, and heart before we get a house elf._

"This is it?" Draco said, waving around the list as he walked into the kitchen. "Only one hundred and forty eight?"

"Those are the only ones I could think of at the moment. I'm sure there are at least a hundred more," Hermione, said, flipping the eggs on the stove.

"Hermione, all this did was endear you even more to me."

"That's because you haven't experienced them. What happens when I forget to mop up the water after I shower and you slip and break your neck on the counter?"

"What?"

"Number sixty-three."

Draco looked down at the parchment and chortled. There it was, _63. I am liable to forget to dry the floor after I take a shower._ "Oh, yeah."

"It's not funny!" she insisted.

He advanced towards her and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. "Flaws make up a person just as much as their strengths," the blonde murmured into her ear. "I love you as a whole person—not just because of the 'good' things about you."

Hermione turned to meet his gaze. "You're delusional."

"I'm right."

"You've fallen in love with the idea of me—the damsel in distress, the girl who needs saving from her terrible fate, who needs healing or fixing or whatever. You still don't know me well enough to actually love _me, _the person."

"Hermione Granger, I've known you for nearly half of my life. I have watched you grow up with my very own eyes. I suspect that all these feelings have been buried inside me the longest of times, since we were third-years or even before that, and it just took seeing you in a different light to trigger them.

"And besides—I thought we already had this conversation. I love you, and that's that."

"That conversation didn't really go anywhere, considering that it ended with us sucking each other's faces and you writhing in crippling pain," she pointed out.

"I think it went everywhere it needed to," the blonde said, and before she could reply he leaned down to kiss her hard on the lips, keeping his arms tight enough so that she wouldn't be able to escape but loose enough so that she could turn completely and wrap her arms around his neck in that desperate way that he loved so much.

Draco had always been confused as to why human beings spent so much time on pressing their lips together when there were so many other lovely places to brush one's mouth. Sure, kissing was a beautiful, wonderful, very special activity that he enjoyed very much, but he also felt that the rest of the body felt quite ignored by the time a good snog was over.

So he soon broke away, leaving Hermione gasping as he trailed his lips down her smooth jawline and down her throat. She fisted his t-shirt in her cold hands and her heavy breaths drove him crazy.

"You can't keep cutting me off by kissing me," she told him.

"Technically I didn't cut you off this time," he chuckled into her collarbone.

"You cut off our discussion."

"You needed cutting off. You think too much sometimes. Just feel for a few minutes, Hermione. Just for a few minutes, and then you can go back to questioning every little thing."

She sighed heavily but seemed to follow his direction, her eyelids fluttering closed.

He moved back up her throat, nipping and sucking at the pale skin there. She tasted like her soap—clean and fresh and slightly of citrus. It was magnificent.

And while Hermione as a body was beautiful and surprising, Hermione as a person was just as beautiful and surprising, as proved when she reached for the waist-band of his pyjama pants and yanked his hips to hers, bringing a raging fire to life somewhere along the bottom of Draco's stomach.

The blonde kissed her with a renewed fervour, backing her against the island counter. He grabbed her waist and hoisted her onto the counter. "Déjà vu?" he smiled into her skin.

"Only I do believe we were in opposite positions." Hermione placed a gentle hand against his chest, making him pause for a moment. "Wait. How's your manly battle-wound?"

"Never better," he answered quickly before tugging the hem of her t-shirt upward. The message was clear and Hermione raised her arms, allowing him to pull off the garment and toss it to the side.

Draco pressed his lips into her chest, breathing in her scent while his hands skimmed her sides.

"Do something," she whispered, tightening her grip around his neck.

"Like what?"

"Anything."

He grinned and loosened her grip just enough to yank his shirt off. Underneath his torso was bare, having forgone the bandages for the first time two days previously.

Her hands left his neck and trailed down the smooth skin of his chest, brushing the thin smattering of blonde hairs that could hardly be seen at all. Meanwhile, his lips found hers again and he kissed her as if only the taste of her would put out the fire raging in his stomach, when in reality it just put fuel to the flame.

Hermione wrapped her legs tentatively around Draco's hips, jerking them even closer. Her ankles crossed right over his tailbone, and now there was no room for her hands to reside on his chest anymore—instead, they wove through his hair, which was starting to dampen with sweat.

His fingers were gradually migrating downward, from her shoulders to her biceps, past her ribs and sides and finally resting on her hips. Consumed by his desperation, Draco reached for the waistband of her sweatpants, but before he could move another inch her hands clamped down hard around his wrists, a clear sign. But she was still kissing him, and dear Merlin she was beautiful, and he was too far gone to consider the sign and its causes and what would happen next because she was _still kissing him, _and—

_BEEEP! BEEEEP! BEEEP!_

"_Shit!_" Draco shouted, recognising the sound of a smoke alarm. He sprung away from Hermione and whirled around to face the stove—blackened egg bits were smoking past the cabinets and up to the ceiling. "Shit!" he repeated, flicking the stove back to zero and then searching for his wand and finding it on the other side of the counter. "_Augamenti! Augamenti!_" the blonde yelled, jabbing the rod furiously at the ruined breakfast. Jets of water flew from the tip, dispersing the smoke and putting out any sparks from the stove, but at the same time sending up a hissing cloud of steam.

When the alarm finally quieted and the steam cleared, Hermione was splayed out across the countertop, laughing hysterically.

"Not funny!" Draco said. "We nearly burnt down the whole flat!"

She just laughed harder.

"Okay, so yeah, it was sort of funny," he admitted, chuckling a bit. Plus, it was just a relief to hear her laugh this hard. "I guess that'll teach us to mess around when we've got food cooking."

"No kidding," Hermione said through her guffaws.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

On Time! Woot! This story is making me so excited, because my current page count is 166! Even when I'm writing ORIGINAL stuff, I never get that high. Sorry for the lack of sex... again. This chapter is half fluff, half angst with the flashbacks. Hopefully that's okay?

So the song this week is from this really old Disney band, from back when they showed That's So Raven and played Aly and A.J. You know, the good old times. This is my favourite of their songs.

Drop a review if you can, and thanks to all the lovelies who favourited/reviewed/alerted from last chapter! You guys seriously make my day. ~Gen


	11. Chasing Cars

**Chasing Cars  
><strong>"_If I lay here  
><em>_If I just lay here  
><em>_Would you lie with me  
><em>_and just forget the world?"  
><em>Snow Patrol

* * *

><p><span>July 12<span>th, 2001

_There were two rooms in Grimmauld Place with balconies, both on the highest floor of the house. Mad-Eye Moody had enchanted the pair so that they would be invisible to those outside the property and protected from any attacks on the house. Any time that Order members breathed air that hadn't been encased in that house for the twenty-odd years it was empty was either when they were fighting for their lives on a mission or out on one of those balconies. _

_Draco was leaning against the right balcony rail, causing the dark ivy that crawled up the side wall to turn different colours. The house inside was complete chaos, and after putting in his two cents, the former-Slytherin came outside to take a break from the pandemonium. _

_Apparently Seamus had the same idea, as he came out onto the left balcony across from Draco and brandished a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. _

"_All the people in there are mad," the Irishman said, placing the cigarette between his lips and reaching for his wand. "Why they won't listen to me I'll never understand. Death Eaters are heartless—not brainless."_

"_Wood just likes a good argument," Draco replied. "You'll have your way eventually."_

"_I doubt it," Seamus said as he lit the cigarette with the tip of his wand. "Want one?"_

_The blonde shrugged. "Why not."_

_Seamus tossed the box over the rails and Draco caught it one-handedly, pulling out a cig and throwing the box back. "Thanks, Finnegan."_

"_Ever smoked before?" Seamus asked as the other man lit up and took a long drag. It burned his throat and lungs, but it calmed his nerves and he refused to cough._

"_Not really. Why?" Draco said, blowing out a stream of smoke._

"_It's sort of a muggle thing. The only reason I do it is because of me dad."_

_Draco's brow furrowed. _

"_Half-blood, remember?" _

"_Oh, yes," he said. _

"_Really not good for you, in all honesty. Ought to quit. Maybe when this fucking war ends, and I'm not as stressed about kicking the bucket all the time." _

_The former-Slytherin nodded sombrely, and there was a short silence between the pair._

"_So… what's up with you and Hermione?"_

_Draco shot a glance to the other wizard, and Seamus let out a low chuckle. "Just because we're fighting for our lives, Malfoy, doesn't mean we no longer gossip. Plus, that stunt you pulled a month ago at the Order meeting has had everyone talking."_

_The blonde flicked some ash from the end of his cigarette. "Nothing at all," he said. "Just doing what any other self-respecting Order member would have done."_

_Seamus scoffed. "Yeah, right. Let's be honest with each other. You fancy her."_

"_Not true. It wouldn't be right or proper of me. And, even if I did fancy her, she'd never fancy me back. She can hardly even wake up in the morning anymore."_

_Seamus shrugged. "Harry doesn't seem to have a problem with it."_

"_Well, Potter never was the sharpest knife in the drawer, was he?"_

"_You're an idiot, Malfoy. I mean, obviously you shouldn't make any moves yet, because she's still messed up from the terrifying shit at the Manor and honestly, she's broken. But once she's better, I think you might have a shot."_

"_How can you say that and be friends with Ron Weasley at the same time?"_

"_Don't get me wrong—I was completely against the idea when it first came upon these lovely ears of mine. But after you proved not to be a complete asshole, after Harry showed a little support… and then I saw the way you look at her… it reminded me of how Ron would look at her. And she needs that now, more than ever." Seamus shrugged. "Not my business, I suppose, but wartime is not a time known for people respecting other people's privacy."_

' ' '

April 28th, 2002

_I'm missing something. Something important. Good God, what the hell is it?_

Hermione jolted into consciousness, ripping herself from Draco's grip and pulling her eyelids apart. _Jesus Christ, why can't I remember?_

"Hermione?" Draco said, waking up instantly. "Hermione, what's wrong?"

It took her a moment to find her words. "I… I don't know when my parents died. I think I missed it. Dammit, Draco, what if I missed their death date? Why can't I _remember?_" the brunette said frantically, wrapping her arms around herself. "What if I missed _Ron's?_" she moaned. "How could I miss their death dates? What kind of daughter am I? What kind of friend am I?"

Draco's heart-rate doubled. _She missed their death dates because of me. Goddammit, why am I still so selfish around her?_

She didn't seem to consider this fact, though, as a frenzied, thoughtful look came over her face. "It… it was just turning to spring... it was rainy that day, really gloomy, but you could practically smell the sunshine hiding behind the clouds… late March, maybe? Mid-April?" Hermione plunged her face into her hands. _"Dammit_, why don't I know this? Ron… Ron was… a month later? God, why can't I remember?"

But Draco remembered. His wits returned and the date flew to the front of his mind. Potter had told him when they found his body. "You didn't miss Weasley's," he assured, her. "It's in five days."

She seemed to calm down slightly after this. "Oh, thank God. Thank God. _Mum, Dad, please forgive me. Please forgive me,_" she whispered over and over again.

_She missed her parent's death dates because of me. Why am I so self-centred around her? I'm being self-centred even now, thinking of me when I should be thinking of her. What's _wrong_ with me, dammit?_

He approached her from behind, placing a tentative hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Hermione. I've been selfish. So extremely selfish."

She whipped around to face him. "You are anything but selfish, Draco Malfoy."

"You're too kind to me. I've let you forget something that should never be forgotten. I've _made_ you forget." Both were quiet.

"I'll take you to him, if you'd like," Draco offered suddenly. "If you think you can… handle it, I'll take you."

Her eyes watered and she took his face in her hands. "That would mean so much to me. If you wouldn't mind…"

"Never," he said immediately. "Never."

They ate a quick breakfast of cereal and milk, and grabbing their cloaks and their wands, locked up the apartment. "Pull up your hood," Draco told her before they apparated. "No one needs to know you're out and about, especially not reporters from the _Prophet_. Yes, they are still running, but just barely. Don't leave my line of sight. I can't protect you if I can't see you."

"Where… where is he buried?" Hermione asked.

"In a small wizard's cemetery outside Ottery St. Catchpole," he replied. _Please don't ask about the Burrow. Please don't ask about the Burrow,_ Draco thought frantically, and fate smiled on him, for Hermione said not another word.

There was the queasy sensation one experiences during apparition and then they were at the entrance to the cemetery, grave markers poking up from the ground across a grassy field. The edge of the town could be seen on the horizon, though Hermione didn't look at it at all as Draco pushed open the screeching gate and ushered her through. The grave-yard was empty, thank Merlin.

It wasn't difficult to find Ron's grave. As tall as the brunette, covered completely in fresh flowers except for a bare patch in the dead centre, where the epitaph was etched, it was a truly fitting memorial for someone who died the way he did.

Draco watched as Hermione's eyes welled up and spilled over, though it was a silent crying—no heavy, racking sobs. Just quiet tears that rolled down her cheeks in the hauntingly beautiful way of those left behind.

"Would you like some time alone?" he murmured, taking her hand into his and squeezing it once. She nodded, let go, and fell to her knees in front of the stone, caressing the flowers that graced the marble. Draco took a step back and headed out into the cemetery, taking a walk among the gravestones while keeping her in sight all the while.

' ' '

Hermione knelt there for a long while, reading the epitaph over and over again. Just seeing those words made her choked up and teary. It was perfect. _Molly must have picked it out. _

_Beneath this stone lies  
>Ron Bilius Weasley<br>who lived as a Gryffindor  
>and died as a Gryffindor<em>

_But most importantly  
>he loved<br>and was loved_

Perhaps fifteen minutes passed—perhaps three hours. She couldn't tell. All she knew was that Draco was now out of earshot, and she had things that needed to be said.

Hermione began speaking to the monument, absent-mindedly stroking the scars on her face that had begun to fade, though the name she had etched into her skin was still legible. "Hey, Ron," she murmured. "I think about you every day. I miss you like crazy. I love you. Please, where ever you are, never forget how much I love you.

"I sang to you on your birthday," she said. "I don't know if you could hear me, but I remembered _that_, at least. It would be impossible for me to forget. I'm sorry it's taken me this long to get here. I haven't been in the best of health. And… well… I'm sorry if you're watching me. I've done things you probably don't want to see." She choked out a laugh.

"I've been ignoring everything these past few days. Shutting it all out. Focusing only on each moment, just the present. I haven't thought about the past, I haven't considered the future—though I probably should be, shouldn't I? Because soon the future's going to be the present, and I'll have no idea what the hell is going on." Hermione chuckled again.

"And I guess how this happened," the Gryffindor continued. "Why _he_, Draco Malfoy, of all people—" she pointed to where Slytherin was walking among the headstones, "—is here with me. Why it isn't Ginny, or Harry, or your mother… Because I've been living only in the present. But maybe it isn't the most terrible thing in the world. I mean, sure, eventually I'm going to have to go back to the past, contemplate the future, but maybe at this moment all I have to do is live _now._" She wiped at her eyes, as the tears were beginning to flow doubly hard, and made herself continue. _I've got to get this out._

"Please, Ron, where ever you are, get mad at me, even though I might not hear. Yell at me, scream at me and tell me what a horrible person I am for feeling this way about him. Shout it so loud my ears ring, tell me how awful and crazy I am, because I deserve it. I'm terrible and revolting and I'm insane—say it all. I will take it, because I deserve it.

"But please, _please_ don't ask me to stop. Don't ask me to walk away from him. Because he is the most _beautiful_ person I have met since I fell in love with you. Before he started coming to see me, I was a wreck. I was destroyed. I woke up every day not knowing if I even wanted to keep breathing. And then he came into the picture. And yes, he was a completely _dick_ at school. He was the most deplorable little snot-nosed _snake_ I ever met. But God, Ron, if you understand nothing else understand this—he's changed. He really has, in the most beautiful way imaginable.

"I really don't think I could ever stop loving you. You're an irreversible part of my life—and I would never _want _to reverse it. But Draco has become just as irreversible. He's… a part of _me_ now, as much as you were and are and will be. _Please_, _please_ don't ask me to change that. Please don't ask me to leave him.

"And… just remember when I'm doing all those things you probably don't want to see, I still love you. I still miss you and I still wish you were here and I still think about your freckles and your laugh and the way you looked at me and how it made me want to smile and cry all at the same time, every time.

"In novels there's this whole idea that you can love two people at once. And the idea always seemed completely preposterous to me—until I started living it." Hermione rose to her feet and leaned forward, gently kissing the surface of the marble stone. "You're my beautiful past, and Draco is my beautiful future—though the difference makes neither of you lovelier than the other. I miss you terribly, Ron. I love you. Please don't forget it." Then she wiped the tears from her eyes and sniffed once. This was it. This was what she'd needed. This was her end and her beginning, the confession and realisation that had been bubbling up inside her, ready to burst, without her even knowing it.

"Draco," she called, turning around and searching the grave yard for the blonde. Instantly he was at her side.

"Yes, Hermione?"

"I… I think I'm done. How long has it been?"

He checked his watch. "Just under two hours. How… how do you feel?"

Hermione took a deep, shuddering breath. "Perfect," she replied. "Just perfect."

' ' '

There was a weeping willow in the east corner of the cemetery, where no one was buried and no head stones peeped from the ground. Hermione sat down under the whispering leaves and she could tell Draco was antsy, eager to leave.

She patted the ground beside her. "Sit, Draco," she implored. "You look like you're about to shoot off toward the gate."

"I'm fine," he replied, sitting down beside her, though his voice was shaky and nervous.

"Any reason why you're all jumpy right now?" Hermione asked conversationally, and the blonde laughed.

"I guess my walk around the grave-yard as made me a bit anxious," he replied. "You'd think fighting a war would help me get used to dead bodies."

The brunette's smile faded. "It never gets easier," she said, before leaning back against the soft grass. When she looked up she could see streams of sunlight pass through the drooping boughs of the tree. The sun had come out to say hello. She could feel it settle on her face. Briefly, a vision of the carnage she had witnessed at Malfoy Manor burst into her head, and she clamped her eyelids down tight, chasing the memory away. Hermione could feel Draco settle down beside her—his fingers laced through hers and the sides of their legs brushed slightly.

The wind blew gently against the bare skin of her hands and face, and the rustling leaves of the willow sang softly above them. Hermione sighed. "This is paradise." A pause. "Or as close as we're going to get."

He let out a weak chuckle, and she turned her head to face him. For a moment she couldn't say anything, the words clogged in her throat—he looked stunning. The sunlight lit up his features so he appeared to be glowing, and his eyelids had dropped to give him a peaceful look she hardly saw in him, now that she knew to look. His palm was smooth and warm and dry against hers.

Draco cracked open one eye. "What? Is there something on my face?"

Hermione giggled. "Just perfection."

He laughed, really laughed this time, a huge, full laugh that made her stomach do backflips and set her cheeks aflame. "So the great Hermione Granger, the Gryffindor Princess of Hogwarts School, has finally admitted the flawlessness of Draco Malfoy, Slytherin Prince?"

"Don't let it go to your head," she warned him jokingly.

"Wouldn't dream of it." He shook his head. "And you're wrong, for once. I'm far from perfect. Quite far," he informed her, and she squeezed his hand once.

"You're perfect to me. And that counts for something, doesn't it?"

He shook his head again. "I'm not perfect. I don't think I'll ever be. But you, Hermione—you're pretty damn close."

She could feel her face redden. "I beg to differ," the brunette said, and Draco knew it was pointless to argue.

Then they both turned back to the canopy of murmuring green, squinting at the beautiful sun that filtered through the leaves, and lie there in that way for a long time, wishing they could bottle that moment forever and forget the rest of the world.

But life, especially during war, is never so simple.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

Please do not hate me for the lateness, or the lack of sex, or the relative shortness of this chapter. I mean, I could have put it all in one chapter, but then the chapter would have been, like, 8000 or 9000 words long or something ludicrous like that, and it probably would have taken me two more weeks, since I am UBER busy this weekend and probably won't even write at all between Thursday night and Tuesday night next week. Plus, it just seemed wrong, having Hermione visit Ron's grave and then having sex with Draco in the same chapter. But I am sorry if this disappointed you.

Um... I _did_ happen to tear up a bit when writing Hermione's little conversation with Ron... well, not so much writing it but reading it for errors...

Thanks to all you lovely people who reviewed/favourited/alerted, you guys are beautiful XD Thanks for reading and don't forget to tell me what you thought!

~Gen


	12. Heartbeat

**Heartbeat  
><strong>"_Let me kiss your scars tonight."  
><em>The Fray

* * *

><p><span>May 20<span>th, 2002

If there was ever such a thing as a "normal life" during times of war and conflict, Hermione and Draco got as close to it as possible. They lived in their own little bubble of affection and hope, for the Order had decided it was best to keep Draco off duty for the time being and let him simply fulfil his role as Hermione's caretaker. The war was going better for the Order than usual—they were slowly getting back onto their feet, their previously-incapacitated members returning to duty with more fuel to their fire than ever.

As was becoming routine, Hermione woke up earlier than Draco. And, as was also becoming routine, she woke up feeling his arms wrapped tightly around her waist.

If she were to be asked what her favourite parts of Draco were, finding an answer would be easy. The first would be his hair. Call her clichéd, or superficial, but there was something about those silvery-blonde locks that had her mesmerised. Maybe it had to do with that first Order meeting, back what seemed like centuries ago, when his hair glowed in the gloom of the meeting room. The second would be his arms, but especially when they were wrapped around her. They were slim but strong—comforting, not unlike Ron's.

She felt him stir into consciousness and missed his embrace when he let go of her waist and stretched, yawning widely. _You're loveliest when you first wake up,_ Hermione thought, looking up at his face. _Because you haven't yet thought of the reality of war._

"Good morning," Draco said drowsily, smacking his lips before kissing her curls.

"Morning," she replied.

And that's how every day began. It was peaceful, uneventful living in which the prospect of war was always so far, but never far enough. It wasn't even close to perfect, but at the moment it was more than adequate. There isn't much someone can ask for during these dark sort of times, so people learned to take what they could get.

But eventually, there comes a time when one must return back to the terrifying reality of the world they live in; and so it happened with Draco and Hermione. They were half-way through lunch during a particularly pleasant day—the edges of summer could be seen and felt in the very corners of the atmosphere—when the coin, which Draco still kept in his pocket or close to hand at all times, warmed and buzzed.

_Shit_, he thought as Hermione laughed at a joke he'd just made. _No, please Merlin, not now. _But he was obliged to check—not only would Ginny have his head if he didn't, but he could also seriously be needed.

"Excuse me for a sec, Hermione," Draco said graciously, jumping up from the table. "I'll be right back." He headed into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet-lid, bringing out the coin from his pocket and reading the inscription.

_7:00 PM – 20 May – Raid_

"Damn-it-all!" he cursed under his breath. "Shit, I've got to tell her this time, or she'll murder me!"

After calming himself down, the blonde exited the bathroom and took his seat across from Hermione.

"What's wrong?" she said as soon as he sat down, her brow furrowed in concern. _Wow, doesn't miss a thing, does she?_ Draco thought, amused.

"I… I've got an Order assignment tonight," he said with a sigh, holding up the coin.

"Hey, I remember these…" Hermione said, sounding excited, taking it from his hand and flipping it over. Then she read the message on the one side and deflated significantly. "Oh," she murmured, and looked up. _What am I supposed to say to that? _he could practically hear her thinking.

"It would be unbelievably selfish of me to ask you to try and get out of it." She took a deep breath and exhaled. "Are you leaving at seven, or do you have to be there at seven?"

"I should be there at seven," he answered. That was how things worked in the Order.

"Let's not think about it until then, yeah?" the former-Gryffindor said.

"Sounds alright to me."

' ' '

"I swear to God, Weasley, if I don't make it home tonight I'll hex you to next Thursday!" Draco yelled over the din of the battle. He whirled around and caught a masked Death Eater square in the chest with a stunning spell before spinning around to meet another one with a yelped "_Protego!"_

"I'd like to see you try!" Ginny yelled back before taking out her own Death Eater with one powerful jab. There was a loud _crack!_ sound as his skull crashed into the opposite wall.

There were many things that Ginny Weasley did not excel at, but duelling was not one of them. Draco was always impressed when he watched the little ginger spitfire fight—the almost maniacal gleam in her eyes when she took out opponent after opponent, performing the most complex spells and manoeuvres that only _she _would be daring enough to attempt. It was awe-inspiring… but distracting.

_Focus, Draco. You want to get home tonight, don't you?_

It wasn't supposed to be a major raid—just a sweep across a tavern where Death Eaters were rumoured to be meeting to discuss strategy. But once again, Ginny and Draco and the rest of the Order showed up misinformed and outnumbered, though not nearly as badly as last time. There were only about four or five more Death Eaters than Order Members.

The goal they were currently hoping for was the capture, incapacitation, or killing of as many of the Death Eaters as they could; but, also currently, the thing they most wanted to accomplish was getting out of there alive. The fast-paced nature of a skirmish this intense made apparating difficult and risky, or else all of the Order would have left by now.

_Left; sounds a lot better than fled,_ Draco thought, almost amused, but it was true—at the rate they were going, the Order couldn't afford to lose many more members, not when so many had just returned to duty. It wasn't as if they were understaffed now, but it was always good to keep the numbers up, for the sake of both morale and the fighting itself.

"Right, Malfoy!" Justin Finch-Fletchley shouted, and Draco spun none-too-gracefully out of the way just in time to avoid a rather deadly-looking blue jet of light.

"Thanks!" he yelled back, taking on the Death Eater that had attacked him.

It was tiring work, this fighting business, and if they hadn't been fighting a war he never would have bothered with it.

The fight seemed to go on forever, and to Draco it seemed like the Death Eaters just kept coming and coming, though no one had entered or exited the tavern since the Order had swept in. A whole hour passed, filled with to-the-death duelling, and by the time the last Death Eater was stunned into unconsciousness off by Alicia Spinnet and Michael Corner, Draco felt ready to collapse. Apparently he was more out of shape than he thought.

"Report!" Ginny shouted, and each member listed off their injuries. Mostly it was just, "A few scratches and an ugly bruise on my jaw!", which was lucky.

"A broken nose and a few cuts," Draco stated weakly before tapping the breaks in his skin and saying a quick "_Episky!_" Though he no longer hurt, he could barely stay on his feet—he stumbled into the nearest chair.

"Malfoy!" Angelina Johnson exclaimed, but the blonde waved her off.

"I… I'm fine," he said. "Just… a little tired. Not used to… this fighting thing anymore, I guess. Getting… a little lazy," he said with a feeble chortle.

"I'll not have you fainting from exhaustion under my watch," Ginny said, placing her hands on her hips. "Go home Malfoy. Everyone else—back to Grimmauld Place. Grab all the wands you can find before you apparate back."

Draco wasn't quite sure if he would be able to apparate himself back into the flat without splinching himself, but there was no way he was asking for someone to side-along apparate him. So without further ado, he focused himself on Hermione's doorstep and with a twist in his gut he transported soundly in front of the door.

_Ah, _he thought happily, _home sweet home. _Then, after running a hand through his hair, _Merlin, I ought to be running laps and doing practice drills or something. _

He knocked three times on the door and Hermione instantly flung it open. However, to his disappointment, she did not fling herself into his waiting arms as she did last time—though she didn't hit him either, which _was_ a plus, he supposed.

Her body seemed to deflate as she sighed in relief, her shoulders and chest dropping as if she held her breath the whole time he was gone. "Thank God, you're okay," the brunette said, waving him inside. "Come on, Draco, you look ready to collapse. Here, let me make you something."

"I don't think I should let you near the stove," he said, and she rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

"I've almost gotten back to normal-human-being cooking. I'm sure I can make you a cup of tea. Is everyone else alright?" Hermione asked as she headed towards the counter. Draco fell onto the sofa as he answered.

"Yeah. It was nothing major. No one even broke anything but me. I'm just _really _out of practice, apparently. Everyone made out fine, nothing life-threatening." The last part was a lie—there was always a chance someone could die, especially in a closed, close fight like the one he'd just experienced, but there was no need for Hermione to worry needlessly.

"Oh, bugger this," the brunette said to the pot, and with a flick of her wand the tea was ready. Draco's eyebrows rose slightly. She was doing magic again. Simple kitchen magic, but still magic; and nonverbal, at that. _She's improved more than I thought,_ he noted.

Hermione poured two mugs and walked over to the sofa, sliding close to Draco so that she leaned against his side, pressing one of the mugs into his hands. "There we are. Some tea for the valiant hero, back from his battle," she said. "Careful, it's hot."

He ignored the warning and gulped down half the cup in three seconds, ignoring the scalding temperature of the tea. It was delicious anyway.

"Thank you," Draco said, wiping his mouth and setting the mug on the coffee table. "Hey, isn't that my shirt?" he commented, looking down at Hermione's outfit. She was indeed wearing his shirt—an old button down that had been worn down to sleep-worthy softness. He kept it here now, along with the rest of his clothes, which he kept in one of the drawers of her bureau. The only other visible garment on her person was a pair of black shorts that were shorter than usual—just above mid-thigh. Draco tried not to dwell on them for too long.

The former-Gryffindor blushed slightly. "I hope you don't mind. I'll wash it later, of course."

He shrugged. "Don't worry. Besides, my clothes look good on you. I have impeccable taste," Draco said, and she laughed, taking a sip of her tea.

"I'm going to go and brush my teeth and settle in for the night," he told her, rising slowly and heading towards the sink to rinse out his mug. "I don't think I'm going to be waking up for a very long time tomorrow morning."

Hermione didn't say anything—instead, she just sat staring at her mug of tea, quite thoughtfully to. It made him wonder for what seemed like the billionth time what was currently going on in that strange little head of hers.

' ' '

In truth, the former-Gryffindor had been thinking about this long and hard while Draco was away. It had been a few weeks shy of a year since the former-Slytherin had come back into her life, and more than four months since she first thought that what they had could turn into something more.

And maybe, by normal standards, that was too fast (she wouldn't know, anyway, because her first and only time involved a boy that she had known for half her life and loved for a half of that). But there was a war being fought—one's perception of normality and what lacked it got out of whack, especially when it came to love.

Also, now that Hermione had gotten her closure of sorts, three weeks ago when she knelt before Ron's grave and professed that she may very well end up loving two people at the same time, there was something inside her that was screaming, _Yes! Yes! Go for it! _And he looked so weary when he had come home… bordering on depressed.

It wasn't as if she was feeling somehow obligated to Draco to give it a try because he seemed to love her so deeply—_she_ wanted as well, which surprised the former-Gryffindor more than almost anything else these past months. When she finally sat down and thought about it, thought about that thing he seemed to want back during their third time together, the one she had not been so sure she wanted to give at the time, it didn't seem like such a bad idea. In fact, it seemed like a _wonderful_ idea. A wonderful, beautiful, amazing, exciting idea that roared inside her head all night.

And now, sitting back in her bed and waiting for Draco to come out of the bathroom, it just _made sense_, made _perfect_ sense to give it a go, even if she was complete shit or it hurt after being out of practice for so long or whatever. But how to go about? She couldn't just turn to him and say, "Hey, Draco, I think now's a good time to have sex." No, she couldn't be that brazen.

' ' '

After Draco brushed his teeth, he proceeded to splash cold water into his face, trying to bring back some energy to himself. Then he towelled off the water and bent over the sink to stare at his reflection. It felt like forever since he'd taken a good look at his appearance. Besides the exhaustion in his face that had developed over the night, he looked healthy—his pale skin not as pale as it used to be, no dark rings under his eyes, and while his hair was far from the rigid perfection he'd maintained at school, at least it was clean. Yes, he was definitely on the better side of war—in comparison to most of the Order, he was practically in heaven.

"Not too shabby, Mr Malfoy," he muttered to himself, cupping his jaw. A sparse amount of white-blonde hair gathered along his jawline and chin—it had been ages since he'd shaved last. Luckily his hair grew at about the same pace as a turtle walked. Draco shrugged, folding the towel before settling it at the edge of the sink and walking out of the bathroom.

The blonde stopped mid-stride as he looked up to find that the lights had been turned off and Hermione was sitting against the bed, still wearing his shirt and… missing her shorts. _Sweet Merlin, where were her shorts?_ It took him a minute to realise where he was staring and shifted his gaze to her face, which was set in a pensive, determined sort of expression.

"H-Hermione," he stammered. He wasn't sure how long he could last, sleeping in the same bed as her, with only a few blankets and her _underwear_ separating them. What was she _thinking?_ "I… I don't think—"

But he lost the ability to form coherent speech as she slid off the bed and walked towards him, biting her lip in a strangely contemplative way. "H-Hermione…?" he stammer again, but he was silenced by her fingers, pressed gently against his lips, not unlike the way they were the morning after their second time snogging.

When Hermione pulled back her fingers, they were swiftly replaced by her lips. She forced his mouth open with hers, her warm, sweet breath rushing fast between his lips. His brain worked too slowly to process it all at once—it was simply too overwhelming. Before he knew it she had abandoned his mouth and travelled down his jaw and neck, nipping and sucking slightly. At first, Draco could barely get past the fact that she was _kissing him like that_ to really start to enjoy the experience, but that changed quickly. The blonde found his eyelids drooping in bliss, could feel the guttural moan rumble deep in his throat as he staggered back against the bathroom door—thank Merlin he'd closed it on his way out, or he would be falling into empty air.

Hermione's tongue—_her tongue!_—dipped into the hollow between his collar bones and he could feel her fingers working at the buttons on his shirt, not removing the garment but simply opening it so her mouth could travel further while her hot hands roved his sides and stomach.

Draco could feel her lips move softly against the skin over his pectoral muscles, and his breathing accelerated and shortened—as it usually did whenever she kissed him, or he kissed her. He reached back for the solid wood of the door, holding himself against it because if he didn't, Draco was sure he would collapse onto the floor. His head dropped back against the door as Hermione's hand's travelled lower, towards his hips and belt buckle.

"Wait," he managed to gasp, and she looked up, her lips brushing against his skin as she met his gaze. "…W-what… why?"

The former-Gryffindor paused for a brief instant, still staring into his eyes in a way that nearly paralleled the moment before their first kiss. She appeared to be judging him—gaging his reaction thus far. Apparently all was satisfactory, because then she pulled their faces closer together. "I want to… I want to give it a go," she murmured, breath dancing nimbly across his lips.

It took less than a second for Draco to grasp her meaning and finally regain his bearing, reaching forward to take her face in his hands and crush his lips to hers in a searing kiss, more searing than any they'd ever shared because this, _this _kiss would lead to something else, something utterly and _truly _magical.

It was _Draco _who was doing the pushing this time, leading Hermione back towards the bed, prodding her gently back against the pillow and straddling her, a knee on either side of her hips, and never breaking their kiss. Her hands were at his hair, as they usually were—God, how he loved when she played with his hair—combing through the strands in a singularly alluring manner.

Draco lips traced her eyelids, her jawline, the scars on her face that had faded to unintelligible scribbles, unbuttoning his shirt that she was wearing and helping her shrug her shoulders from it, exposing her midriff and her purple bra that had been stained dark with night and grey with moonlight. "Gods, you're beautiful," he murmured. Draco felt as if he'd forgotten to breathe as his hands moved across her stomach and curled around her waist and hips, lost in the feeling of her skin beneath his. Meanwhile, Hermione tugged at his shirt collar before pulling off entire shirt, tossing it to the floor.

And then her warm little hands were _everywhere_, on his neck and between his shoulder blades and pushing into the small of of his back and brushing against his ribcage and abdomen… It was glorious, absolutely glorious. Draco could feel the brunette arch her back, pushing herself towards him in a gesture that seemed to say, _touch me_.

"Are you sure about this, Hermione?" he mumbled into her neck, his lips buzzing against the sensitive flesh there, and she moaned. The sound was distracting, to say the least, but Draco had to make sure. "Just say the word, and I'll stop. I'll stop in a heartbeat."

"I'm sure," she murmured, fingers back in his hair. "Please, Draco. I want you."

Hermione had said it in the least dirty way imaginable, but it didn't stop Draco's body temperature from sky rocketing, nor did it do anything to quiet the flame that had begun to build between his thighs. _She wants me. She wants me. She wants me_, ran marathons through his head.

Some people had a preoccupation for the word need—they wished to be _needed_, needed so badly that they had it whispered in their ear when they made love or fucked. Draco wasn't like that. For him, _need_ signalled dependency—not always enthusiastic, willing dependency, either. "Need" reminded him more of weakness than anything. Perhaps it was a Malfoy thing, but anyway he preferred to be _wanted_ much more—the word altogether seemed more personal, more loving.

The former-Slytherin proceeded to trail his lips between her breasts and down towards her bellybutton. _Her knickers match her bra_, he noticed as they appeared in the very border his peripheral vision. The same shade of purple, the same simple lace design on the edges. _Lace. Great Merlin, when was the last time I saw lace? _he thought, almost amused.

It seemed like years and years since Draco had gotten hard; really, truly, up-for-anything hard, but he was at that point now—or, nearly. He could feel his erection fighting against his pants and briefly wondered if Hermione could feel it too.

Draco's mouth skimmed over her panties as he gently pulled her knees apart, spreading her legs slightly. He continued down the top of her thigh, his nose brushing against her smooth skin, until he twisted down to the side of her knee. The blonde kissed his way back up the inside of her thigh, getting closer and closer to her centre.

Finally, his lips came to rest at the bottom edge of her knickers, and he tugged at the fabric with his teeth. To the blonde's surprise, Hermione's hips jumped slightly at this action, and he found himself all the more turned on for it, a moan rising from deep in his throat.

He could smell her now. Sweet Merlin, he could _smell her_. A delicious aroma that emanated from that special, sacred place that sat between her thighs. After a moment of hesitation, Draco buried his face into it, nose pressing against her pantie-covered heat, feeling the hardened bud of her clit through her knickers. It was heaven. Pure heaven. He took a deep breath, breathing the scent in and revelling in it. Draco could feel her trembling as he laid his hands on her thighs, and enjoyed the fact that he affected her so strongly, as she affected him just as strongly, if not more.

The former-Slytherin glanced up to catch Hermione's eye, making one final check if she really, _truly _wanted this, and was met with her intense gaze, laced with a surprising amount of… _lust._ "Please," the brunette whispered, her voice rough and pleading and quivering with her want. "Draco…"

He needed no more convincing. Draco grabbed the waistband of the garment and pulled it down her legs, tossing it onto the floor with the rest of their clothes. "I've got it," Hermione said when he made to reach for her bra. He nearly sighed with relief—he never was good at undoing those things.

At last, every single piece of clothing that had previously covered her body was gone, leaving her bare and blushing beneath him as he soaked in this image of her. "Why are you still staring?" she asked timidly.

"Because you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen," Draco answered, shoving off his trousers. And it was true. Sure, Hermione was very different from those models you saw in muggle ads or on the runway or whatever. Her eyebrows were probably thicker than average, her nose a bit too small to fit in with the rest of her features, her body practically smothered in knotted scars and birth-markings… but none of those mattered (in fact, they endeared her more to him). And there was something simply _radiant_ about her, a light that burned so bright inside her that he couldn't understand why he never saw it at school, why he felt the need to harass her and annoy her and act cruelly to her all those years. Now he saw her as perfect—everything he could ever dream of wanting.

"Draco?" she said, breaking him from his reverie, the amount of desperation in her voice both surprising and pleasing.

"Mm?" he replied.

And she gave him a look that he would never be able to describe but would always be able to envision, from then until the end of his life. "_Give me something to dream about tonight_."

Draco descended down and crushed his lips against Hermione's, delighting in the feeling of her mouth moulding against his, but delighting even _more_ in the feeling of her _body_ moulding against his, their bare, warm skin sliding against each other's with only Draco's boxers in between them. Her legs curled around his hips, pulling him closer to her so that he could feel her wet sex on his erection, even with his underwear still on.

Her fingers hooked into the waistband of his boxers and slid them downwards, down to his ankles and from there he kicked them off himself. He kissed the brunette again and again, on her shoulders and neck and chest and face, tracing her numerous, beautiful scars, while one of her hands reached down to lightly stroke his cock. Draco shuddered at each pass of her hand, running his palms over her waist, stomach, and breasts.

"Ready?" he breathed into her collar bone.

"I'm yours," Hermione replied, and her words drove him forward. Draco slowly eased himself inside her, memorising the feeling of her slick heat tight around his cock, feeling her tense tantalizingly as he pushed into her. Her hands returned to his hair again and fisted it, pulling so hard it _almost_ hurt. For a moment Draco thought she wanted him to stop, but then she moaned and arched into him, and the thought was gone, replaced by mind-numbing desire.

Slowly, almost painfully slowly, Draco began thrusting in and out of her, giving Hermione time to adjust to him. But then, it suddenly dawned on him that she obviously hadn't had sex since before Ron's death—or maybe she never had sex at all! Maybe she was a virgin! The thought horrified him and excited him at the same time. On one hand, he could really be hurting her and she wasn't saying anything. On the other hand, he would be her first—

"Draco," Hermione gasped, interrupting his train of thought. "Keep—keep moving."

He followed her instruction but had to ask: "Is this… hurting you?"

She shook her head impatiently. "No, but _I _will hurt _you_ if you don't move faster!" she said, pushing her hips up against his, and a shockwave of pleasure flew through Draco's body. Instantly he picked up his pace, driving faster and harder into her with every move. He could feel her squeeze her already-tight sex around his cock, could tell she was getting closer and closer to climaxing. Still, her hands wove through his hair and her lips ran over his neck and chest.

"Draco," Hermione gasped again, and she sounded as if she was running a marathon. "Draco, I lo—"

"Don't talk yet," he interrupted quickly. "Please, wait."

She looked momentarily confused but obliged, squeezing her eyes shut in what looked like complete bliss. Her face shimmered exquisitely with sweat.

The fire that had roared in his abdomen and along his skin became an inferno as surges of pure pleasure rolled over his body, and all he could think of was this sensation of Hermione's skin sliding along his own, and the sound of her pants and gasps and moans, and the sting of her nails that were now scraping over his shoulder blades.

Draco pushed into her thrice more before he finally reached his orgasm, burning pleasure flowing like molten lava through his veins as he saw stars—beautiful, white-hot stars that shone against black and then Hermione's face and then black again, and when he opened his eyes and looked down at her—face flushed and damp with sweat, hair wild and frizzy, riding out the end of her own orgasm—the very last of his release flowed into her and he nearly collapsed on her from exhaustion.

Instead, Draco pulled himself out of her and fell to the side. He pulled Hermione close against him, aligning her warm body against his own, cinching his arms tight around her waist and drawing the blankets up to their waists. Her eyes were closed as he kissed his way up her neck, her chest heaving.

The brunette's first words surprised him: "Why did you tell me to wait?" she whispered, bringing one of his hands up to her lips and kissing his palm.

"When?" Draco asked. His thoughts were muddled, distracted. He was still reeling from the fact that they had just had sex, and the sex itself.

"I was about to say something, and you told me to wait," Hermione murmured as she scaled the side of his index finger with her lips, which was really quite distracting."

"Oh," he said, remembering. "I just thought that if you wanted to say anything meaningful, it would be better we were both in our right state of minds, and not when we were shagging each other's brains out," he explained, chortling. "Makes it seem more meaningful when you say it when I'm _not _trying to seduce you," he added.

Hermione laughed with him. "I think I was seducing _you_ more than _you_ were seducing _me_."

Draco shook his head. "Why, what were you going to say?"

The former-Gryffindor hesitated briefly before shifting to face him. She pressed her body into his so they were chest to chest, knee to knee, and everything in between. She wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him closer, so that their noses brushed and their breath mingled. The blonde froze, wide-eyed and puzzled, when she said it.

"I love you, Draco."

Fireworks. Brilliant, beautiful, deafening, colossal, dazzling fireworks were going off deep within Draco's heart and setting his whole body alight and nearly blinding him.

"I love you too, Hermione," he managed, voice hoarse with surprise and indescribable elation. "Always will."

And then they sealed it with a kiss that seemed to last forever.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

Woooott! Se-xay time! Hahaha, sorry, erhm… So yeah. I'm really, _really _proud of this chapter. Like, freakishly, egotistically so. Most of my favourite lines in the entire story are in this chappie. . I hope you liked it as much as I did XD

While I'm here, I just wanted to apologise for the lateness of this chapter, I think it's only been two weeks, but it may have been three, but either way I'm very, very sorry that you all had to wait that long. Also, I have two new story ideas that have both been started and that I plan to post here: The first is a murder mystery involving a rather steamy Draco/Blaise/Hermione love triangle, and the second is my own twist on the Princess Anastasia story, based loosely on the (FANTASTIC!) animated film, with Hermione representing Anastasia and Draco, Dimitri. I'll definitely finished "Delicate" first before I get into the other two, of course. (And I know most, if not all of you lovely people would never do this, but please _please_ do not steal those story ideas. I really want to write them, and I would be really disappointed if another author stole them)

So… hope you enjoyed the long-awaited sex scene. I suppose, plot-wise, I could have just ended it here, but that's not going to happen. I have quite a bit more to cover :) Hopefully I won't be late next time, but just so you all know, I will mostly likely post either Monday night or Tuesday night (as I have this week).

Bye for now, and thanks to everyone who alerted and reviewed and favourited!

~Gen


	13. Swimming

**Swimming  
><strong>"_Your songs remind me of swimming  
><em>_Which I forgot when I started to sink  
><em>_Then I realized, then I realized, then I realized  
><em>_I was swimming, yes, I was swimming"  
><em>Florence + the Machine

* * *

><p><span>May 31<span>st, 2002

They'd become so accustomed to having the other's body close to theirs during sleep, that Hermione woke almost instantaneously after Draco got up from bed. She rolled over and looked at the clock. _3:12._

"_Lumos_," she heard him murmur from the desk.

"Draco?"

"Shhh. It's alright, love. Go back to sleep."

"What are you doing?" she mumbled into her arm.

"I'll show you when I'm done."

"Now you've piqued my curiosity." She sat up and ran her fingers through her hair. "I'm never going to be able to go back to sleep."

Draco stood up and walked over to kiss her gently on the forehead. "It's alright. It's a surprise. You'll see in the morning."

Hermione sighed and crawled back into bed.

"I love you," he said as he turned back to the desk.

"Love you, too," the brunette replied, turning back to sleep. Only a few hours passed when she could feel gentle fingers stroking her shoulder, drawing comforting patterns on the short-sleeve of her shirt. "Hermione."

She opened her eyes, blinking groggily and shifting towards a sitting position. "Good morning," Hermione said quietly, staring intently at the blonde who had been leaning over her, still in his tank-top and boxers. "Are you finished with your surprise?"

"Yep. Are you ready?"

"For what?"

Draco straightened and pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. He cleared his throat. "One-hundred-and-forty-eight reasons why I'm in love with Hermione Granger. Number O—"

But he didn't get to say another word. Hermione had thrown her arms around his neck and kissed him hard.

"I didn't even get to read number one," Draco said as her lips trailed down his neck and her hands travelled toward his waistband. "There're 148."

"That's okay. I'll read them later." And then she pulled him down on top of her and they did not emerge for breakfast for a long while.

' ' '

An article taken from the_ Daily Prophet_, dated May 15th, 2001

**War-hero murdered, three other rescued.**

Earlier this morning the _Prophet_ was informed that the mission into Malfoy Manor was met with partial success. Three members of the Order of the Phoenix and Ministry Staff were found in the Malfoy dungeons around 4:32 A.M., all sustaining physical and psychological injuries and one in critical condition.

The fourth, Ron Weasley, famous war-hero and good friend of Harry Potter's, was reported dead at the scene, having been deceased for nearly two weeks. Mafalda Hopkirk of the Improper Use of Magic Office and Pomona Sprout, former professor of Herbology at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, are expected to make a full recovery and currently reside in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

Hermione Granger, war-heroine and good friend to Harry Potter, remains in a comatose state at the Hospital. No other information has been given about her state of health at this point in time, but sources have confirmed that things are looking bleak for Granger.

We at the _Prophet_ mourn the death of such a beloved and skilled war-hero and hope for the speedy recovery of the three other victims.

_-Cassandra Blackwell, investigative reporter_

' ' '

June 5th, 2002

"It's almost time for your gift," Hermione reminded him as they ate dinner.

"You honestly didn't need to give me anything," Draco said, sounding exasperated. "I've got everything I need."

She looked at him indignantly. "Who said I got you anything?"

He stared at her. "Well, you said gift…"

"Not all gifts are tangible, Draco dearest," Hermione said dryly.

"Ooh, so this is a special sort of gift, then?"

"A _very _special gift."

"What _kind _of very special gift?"

"You'll just have to wait until after dinner, now, won't you?"

"Oh, come on Hermione. That's not fair. Now you've got me all curious and wondering and whatnot. I don't think I can wait another whole half-hour."

She made a sort of tutting sound. "Awful patience, dear. We'll have to fix that soon."

He laughed. "Right after 'insufferable git-iness, then?"

"Is that even a word?"

He shrugged. "Probably not. But honestly, Hermione. I'm a Malfoy. We're used to getting the things we want, when we want it. So you can't expect my sense of patience to be _too_ close to normal."

"What _can _I expect to be _too _close to normal?" she asked teasingly.

' ' '

"Can I open my eyes yet?"

"Nope."

"How about now?"

"Nope."

…

"Now?"

Hermione laughed. "No, Draco, you cannot! Don't peek until I tell you to."

"Alright, alright." He bounced his knee, making his thigh thrum against the seat of Hermione's desk chair. "You're making me nervous. I have no idea what to expect."

"That's the whole point of a surprise. To _surprise_ you."

"Done yet?"

"Negative."

"How about—"

"Okay. Open your eyes. Very slowly. I'm worried I might give you a heart attack."

"Wait, what—?" Draco said as his eyelids flew apart, but he needed to answer, as it was sprawled in front of him on the bed, wearing—dear Merlin—a lacy green bra and matching skimpy knickers. The bra was decorated with a pattern of rose-buds and a green rose burst in full bloom over her centre. "Sweet Merlin," he said. "Where the hell did you get those?"

Hermione giggled very un-Hermione-ish-ly and snapped one of her bra straps. "A holiday gag gift from the girls back in 6th year. Never even took it out of the box." She looked up to meet his gaze and something heated and dark curled around her pupils. She sat up and sensuously rolled her shoulders. "Well. Come and get it."

Draco was up out of the chair before Hermione could even finished her sentence. He feverishly pulled off his shirt, throwing it to the side and climbing onto the bed to crush his lips into hers. Instantly, her hands were on him, gliding over his rapidly-warming skin.

The brunette broke the kiss, pulling at the button on his trousers with slim, nimble fingers. "Tell me you aren't going to go easy on me tonight," she whispered, voice like sweet, warm, melted chocolate pouring into his ears. "I'm not going to break anymore."

He gasped as she reached into his pants and ran her fingers down his hardening length. "Trust me," he rasped as Hermione took him into her hands and gently squeezed. "Any thought along those lines abandoned me as soon as you said that."

"Good," the former-Gryffindor said, satisfied. "Now shag me good and properly."

"I'm sure we'll have no problem with that," Draco said, grinning wickedly.

' ' '

An article taken from the_ Daily Prophet_, dated December 25th, 2001

**Vicious attack made on Order safe haven.**

One of the last great safe havens for the Order of the Phoenix has reportedly been destroyed. Sources inform the _Prophet_ that the home of Mr and Mrs Arthur Weasley was incinerated in a deadly Death Eater attack. The attack was made at roughly 10:15 last night.

Bellatrix Lestrange, Anton Dolohov and Amycus Carrow are all suspected to be involved in the attack. No casualties as of yet, though Charlie Weasley, Dedalus Diggle, and Madame Olympe Maxime are reported to be in critical condition.

We at the _Prophet_ mourn for the loss of the Weasleys' beloved home and wish a speedy recovery on the victims of this treacherous attack.

_~Cassandra Blackwell, investigative reporter_

' ' '

June 16th, 2002

The aroma of sizzling bacon and eggs wafted into the room and into Draco's nostrils as he stirred into consciousness. The blonde took a deep breath, inhaling the homey sort of smell before throwing off the blankets and climbing out of bed.

"Good morning, love," he said to Hermione as he walked up to her, winding his arms around her waist and burying his face into her mane of curls.

"Hello, Draco."

They stood there for a moment, Draco breathing in the scent of her hair while Hermione stirred around their breakfast. "Do you know what day this is?" he said into her brown tresses.

She looked startled. "Th-the sixteenth?" she stuttered. "What, am I forgetting something important?"

"Today, exactly a year ago, you walked into your first Order Meeting since getting out of St. Mungo's." Hermione shifted to face him and the blonde laced his hands at the small of her back.

"That was _also _the day I'm pretty damn sure I fell in love with you."

The brunette scoffed. "You're joking. It couldn't have been that soon."

Draco smiled. "It was. I swear it on my life. And besides, remember how much time I spent so much time with you in the hospital?"

"Oh, yeah, because me being emaciated and in a coma definitely inspired your love," Hermione said sardonically.

"It did!" he insisted, chortling a bit. Then his expression turned a bit more serious. "It forced me to see you in a different light. Before, you were someone insufferable that I had to reconcile with to get what I wanted, which was acceptance and trust. Then you became someone I _wanted_ to reconcile with, and then I someone to befriend, and then, eventually, someone to love."

Hermione shook her head and smiled. "You know, in books, there are plenty of girls who have this twisted idea that they're going to change someone into a better person. I always wanted to shake them and shout at them about how it was an awful, pointless way to spend one's life."

"And here, look," Draco said, leaning down to kiss her lightly on the neck. "You've done it without even trying! I always knew you were remarkable, Hermione."

"Always?" she said, raising one eyebrow in amusement.

"Of course," he said with a smirk.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR DRACO, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! So yeah, it's little Draco's birthday. He's FUCKING THIRTY TWO. GOOD GOD, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? But yeah, birthday sex for dear Draco... XD This is sort of a filler chapter, so sorry about that too... sort of "the calm before the storm" ;) Thanks for all the lovely reviews for last chapter and the favourites and alerts, hope you liked it and I'll be back soon!**  
><strong>

~Gen

(P.S. And before I go... I posted a new one-shot called "Awake my Soul". It's very much like "Delicate" in that it's a war-story and sort of angsty and has sex XD I usually don't "toot my own horn", but this is probably the best one-shot I've ever written. So if you get a chance, check it out for me :D)

(P.S.S. Did you see the new image feature? I'm thinking of doing some art for "Delicate"; I love drawing, but don't draw nearly enough Dramione XD Have any of you guys done any art or edits for your stories?)


	14. Misguided Ghosts

**Misguided Ghosts  
><strong>"_I am going away for a while  
><em>_But I'll be back don't try and follow me  
><em>_Cause I'll return as soon as possible"  
><em>Paramore_  
><em>

* * *

><p><span>January 5<span>th, 2002

_It was not supposed to be this deadly. Dangerous, sure—all their assignments were. This was a fucking war._

_But not this dangerous. Not so dangerous that only fourteen of _twenty six_ made it back home that night._

_Arthur, Bill, Charlie, Ginny and Fred Weasley, Luna Lovegood, Neville Longbottom, Padma and Parvati Patil, Seamus Finnegan, Susan Bones, Alicia Spinnet, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Augusta Longbottom, Fleur Delacour, Filius Flitwick, Tonks Lupin, Angelina Johnson, Lee Jordan, Minerva McGonagall, Dean Thomas, Alastor Moody, Remus Lupin, Katie Bell, Draco Malfoy, and Harry Potter were a part of the biggest team the Order of the Phoenix had ever deployed at once._

_Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had long since been abandoned. The war had reached its height and Dumbledore refused to take any students, now that the situation had become so dire. It served as a safe-house for the Order now—a last-chance fortress used only in the most deadly of circumstances. And Severus Snape had gained word that Death Eaters were to infiltrate it. _

"_I'm not completely sure how many," he'd said a week before, "But it will not be a small group. Ten at the least, two-dozen at the most. Maybe even including me. The Dark Lord is sending them to search for something in that castle, Dumbledore, but I do not know what."_

_Dumbledore had sat at the head of the table, hands folded on the pock-marked wood, silent and thoughtful for a moment. "Well, Severus," he said quietly, at last, "I imagine he's looking for a horcrux."_

_There had been a collective gasp from the older members of the Order, though the younger ones present looked at each adult, confused. "Excuse me, sir," Cho Chang said timidly, "But what is a… a horcrux?"_

"_The details are not important," Dumbledore had said with a peaceful wave of his hand. "All we need to know is that Voldemort will want this horcrux very badly, and will make sure he retrieves it before we do. So, naturally, we must retrieve it first. Kingsley." He'd turned to the wizard, who had overseen most of the training and practice drills that the younger Order Members took part in. "Assemble a team of at least twenty-five Order members for this assignment by tomorrow morning, if you please. And, with no offence to you all," Dumbledore said with a kind smile, "I would prefer to have only the most experienced wizards and witches and best duellists on this team."_

_Harry had wanted to be part of it from the start. There was no question about it. His name was first on Kingsley's roster._

_Ginny remembered briefly considering pleading him to stay back at Order Headquarters but quickly dismissed the idea, knowing that once Harry put his mind to something, it was nearly impossible to convince him otherwise. She wasn't sure what it was about this particular assignment, but it chilled her bones in a way that none other did. She didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified that she was on that roster, as well._

_The night before the assignment, she and Harry had laid in bed together and he held her hand tightly under the blankets while her head rested against his shoulder. "Are you worried?" he had asked her, his thumb stroking her skin lightly. "For tomorrow?"_

"_Yes," she'd answered him honestly. "I really wish none of us had to go."_

_He'd chuckled at that. "I really wish that none of us had to fight a war, but that's obviously not going to change very soon."_

"_It's such a miracle that neither of us has gotten injured yet," she had whispered and Harry laughed. _

"_You're my little miracle," he told her, and she couldn't help but smile, turning to place a kiss on his neck._

"_Do you know what a horcrux is, Harry?" Ginny asked him curiously, and his face turned serious. _

"_Unfortunately," he replied. _

"_Can you tell me?"_

_Harry sighed, but complied. "It's the reason Voldemort's so powerful, why he came back. Horcruxes have a piece of a person's soul in them, and as long as he's got a horcrux hidden somewhere, he can't truly die. Dumbledore thinks he has six, so his soul is split in seven."_

_Ginny shuddered—the thought of Voldemort that powerful, that seemingly invincible, scared the shit out of her. Plus, the notion of splitting one's soul—that was dark magic, no doubt about that. Frightening, evil magic that made shivers dance down her spine.. "Do you know what any of them are?"_

"_Dumbledore's destroyed one already—a ring that Voldemort's grandfather used to wear. And he thinks another one is a locket that once belonged to Salazar Slytherin. Based on what he knew about Voldemort, he thinks that there's one from each house, excluding Gryffindor. And… the diary. That was a horcrux." Harry turned to face her, watching her reaction carefully. _

"_So the Tom that I wrote to… that was a piece of his _soul?_" Ginny asked, repulsed. "It wasn't just a memory?"_

_Harry nodded sombrely. "That's what Dumbledore says."_

So that's what they spoke about during their meetings. _Harry and Dumbledore were often missing, disappeared into the former-Headmaster's room for what they called "private lessons". Ginny had originally thought that they were practising spells that would help him defeat Voldemort but never thought to ask, deciding that if Dumbledore wanted anyone to know what they talked about in there, he would have said so outright or told Harry it was okay to speak of it. _

"_And Dumbledore thinks that there is one of these… horcruxes… in Hogwarts? And the Voldemort wants to retrieve it?" the youngest Weasley asked, and Harry nodded._

"_Exactly," he replied. "We're hoping that the Death Eaters will lead us right to it, but if not, we might just have to get rid of them all and then look for it afterwards."_

"_If the horcrux was in the school all along, why haven't we been looking for it?"_

"_Dumbledore was never really convinced that Voldemort had a horcrux in Hogwarts, but he says this is proof now. There's no other reason that Voldemort would go back to the school; or send people to go back to the school, I guess."_

"_I still don't understand. How are we supposed to find it if we don't even know what it is?"_

"_Well, Dumbledore has a few guesses that he's shared with me. Also, he thinks that because of the sort of… connection I share with Voldemort, it should be easy to find the horcrux."_

"_I don't like this horcrux business," Ginny told him. "It sets my teeth on edge._

"_Me neither, Gin," Harry said, squeezing her hand lightly, "But what can we do?"_

' ' '

June 27th, 2002

"Draco?" Hermione said, looked up from her breakfast.

"Yes?" he answered, slightly worried. There was something in her tone that sent warning signals down his back.

"I want to start training again. Practicing spells and duelling and whatnot. I want to get back in the Order."

The blonde stared at her, surprised. This definitely wasn't expected.

"I mean, let's face it," she continued. "My curse seems to have been broken, impossible as it sounds. I can do magic again. My nightmares have been nearly non-existent, and I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself at this point. I can even cook now," she joked. "And there's a whole _war _going on. It feels wrong, me staying in the flat, me not being a part of it anymore."

It had always been in the back of his mind, the fact that she would want to return to duty after breaking the curse and continue to fight for the Order. But in truth, Draco was hoping that the war would end first, so she would never have to fight in it. Also, there were a few other reasons why her returning to the Order wouldn't be the best situation in the world for him.

"Of course," he said, though he feared that he voice was trembling. "We can practice here for a while and I'll see how you're doing, and then if you seem well enough we'll get you back at headquarters."

Meanwhile, the former-Slytherin's mind was going haywire, trying to figure out exactly how he was going to make this work. The last thing he wanted as to do something that would screw up his relationship with Hermione, now that they were so happy right now. And, not only that, he also wasn't sure how she would take war after everything she'd been through, the loss she'd experienced. He hadn't exactly been keeping her up-to-date with the going-on's of the Order, the losses and injuries, and he feared the news would be like a blow to the stomach for her, perhaps propel her back into her former depressed state.

_It was stupid of me, keeping things from her. _He knew this for a while, but never chose to acknowledge it. _Now how am I supposed to bring her back into that world?_

Hermione smiled at him and his stomach plummeted with guilt. She really had no idea what she was in for, returning to the Order, and it was his fault.

' ' '

January 5th, 2001

_Ginny tried desperately to keep track of the number of Death Eaters as she fought, but it was nearly impossible. There could have been twenty, there could have been a hundred. Every time she thought she'd taken out one, another would spring up in its place, nameless and menacing._

"Reducto!_" she shouted at one as it advanced on her, its mask grinning grotesquely and glowing. The Death Eater flew backwards, a gaping hole in the middle of its stomach, and Ginny continued forward, buffeted by the wave of flowing duellists, casting curses and spells on their opponents. _

_The youngest Weasley prided herself on her ability to incapacitate Death Eaters without using a single Unforgiveable Curse, but obviously her opponents did not share this pride, as the green light of the Killing Curse lit the Great Hall of the school every few seconds. Each time she saw one, Ginny shuddered, wondering if one of her comrades had fallen as a result of the curse. _

_Gods above, she really hated war._

_She had long-since learned to keep her eyes facing forward to avoid seeing any of her friends get attacked; though she longed to help them each time, distractions were deadly while duelling, and she couldn't afford to be distracted, cruel as it sounded. _

_But a blood-curdling scream to Ginny's left made the redhead whirl around. The scream was too young and feminine to have flown from a Death Eater's mouth. She turned and saw Fleur, her sister-in-law, falling to the ground in a pool of her own blood. She had hated and envied the woman who had married her brother, but that didn't mean she wanted Fleur dead. _No one should die like that._ Ginny raced forward, hexing every masked figure that got in her way before she arrived at Fleur's side._

"_Ginny!" the older woman gasped, grabbing her side and trying to staunch the blood. "Ginny, go! You cannot help me; you are wasting your time."_

"_No," she said defiantly while racking her brain for healing spells. "No, I can't leave you like this." She managed to smile down at her sister-in-law. "Bill would have my head."_

_Fleur looked as if she was going to smile as well, but instead she let out another horrifying shriek and before Ginny even had a time to process the sound, a bony yet surprisingly strong hand was yanking her to her feet and pulling her away. There was a flash of green light and another of Fleur's screams, and when Ginny looked back the woman was still, eyes blank and unseeing, blood still pouring from her wounds. _

_Ginny turned to face her rescuer and found it to be none other than Malfoy, who appeared absolutely terrified._

"_Fucking Merlin, Weasley," he said. "I thought you were going to die."_

"_Not tonight, Malfoy. You're still stuck with me for a little longer, it seems," she told him. "Thanks."_

_He nodded. "Potter says to keep fighting, and to watch out for any Death Eaters that leave the fray. They'll be going after horcruxes."_

_This whole conversation lasted less than ten seconds and then they were running in opposite directions, blasting Death Eaters along the way. Fleur's death had shaken Ginny to the core, and she could feel her hands trembling with every step she took. Her body went on autopilot as she fought while inside her head, her thoughts were racing, returning back and back again to the one thought—_Bill loved her, but now she's dead.

' ' '

July 14th, 2002

She planned to be out and back before Draco even woke up (they barely ever woke up before twelve on a Sunday), but just in case she left a note:

_Went to see Ginny. I have my wand with me. Will be back in time for lunch. Love you always -Hermione_

Over the past two weeks Draco had gone through almost every spell they'd ever learned in Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Hermione could tell that she was doing well—much better than Draco had expected, at least. He was holding something back from her, she could tell, but she respected and knew him enough not to press him about it, and to know it couldn't be something major. _This is Draco I'm talking about,_ she once thought to herself. _He loves me._

The night before, though, Hermione had decided it was high-time that she be reunited with her friends. She hadn't seen them in at least eight months, excluding Harry, and now that she was back in a proper state of mind, she missed them terribly. The former-Gryffindor couldn't believe how quickly the time seemed to have passed—she never would have guessed eight months had gone by since Draco started visiting her had it not been for the calendar on her fridge. Hermione also felt terribly guilty, not even thinking of most of them over the course of those eight months.

Before her capturing, the Order would often have Sunday brunch at the Burrow. That was where she was headed now, suspecting that that's where everyone would most-likely be. Blowing Draco a quick kiss—a real kiss would wake him, and he looked so peaceful—she placed a Disillusionment charm on herself and exited the flat, putting up the usual wards and preparing herself for Apparation.

Hermione had tried apparating a few times before and it had worked well, considering how out-of-practice she was, but that was from one end of the kitchen to the other. This would be her first test-run apparating over long distances, and the brunette crossed her fingers that it would work.

Using the three D's—Dear Lord, she couldn't believe she remembered that from sixth year—Hermione felt the slight tug on her stomach and the nauseating sensation of apparating and before she knew it she had been deposited at the bottom of a hill—perhaps a few hundred metres from the Burrow. She mentally shrugged—not bad, in the grand scheme of things.

Hermione eagerly trekked up the hill, wand in hand and presumably unnoticeable thanks to the Disillusionment Charm. Excitement buzzed through her veins—she was already picturing the exhilarating reunion she would have with Ginny and the rest of the Weasleys, and how the Order would welcome her with bright smiles. She knew that once she reached the top of this hill, the Burrow would be in sight, and she would once again be with her family.

But when she came to the tip of the hill, there was no Burrow in sight; only a large, charred stretch of grass and ash where the house she had nearly grown up in once stood. The Burrow had gone up in flames, and what she saw now were the only remains.

Hermione could feel her throat close up and tears spring into her eyes. "No—this is impossible," she said to herself, clutching her wand tighter in her hand. Tears began to stream down her face and large sobs built in her chest. "No, no, no, no—" The brunette spun around, unable to look upon the incinerated remains of her childhood a moment longer and then quickly thought of Grimmauld Place, the only other place her friends could be, and she was apparating again, deposited non-too-gently on the doorstep of Grimmauld Place.

' ' '

January 5th, 2002

"_Harry!" Ginny cried, the clamour of the battle fading as her mind zeroed in on him. He looked up from the body of Severus Snape, unmoving in front of him. She could tell he had cried, but the tears were now gone, and there was a look on his face that she had never seen before, a confusing mixture of terror and acceptance._

_She would never know how the Potion's Master, slowly bleeding out from a well-placed _Sectumsempra_ had asked Harry to look into his mind, to see what he could never have put into words in time. She would never know what Harry had seen. She would never know about the love Snape had harboured for Lily Evans, even twenty years after she had died as Lily Potter. She would never know what Snape had let slip through, the conversation he had had with Professor Dumbledore revealing Harry's true role in the war. All she would know was this—her boyfriend, her _soulmate _looking up from Snape's unconscious body with that look in his eyes that she would never understand. _

_Harry ran towards his girlfriend, taking her hands in his and squeezing them tightly as he spoke. "I've got to go, Ginny. I've found a horcrux."_

"_Did Snape tell you?"_

_After a brief moment of hesitation Harry nodded._

"_I'll come with you," she said, but he clutched her hands even more tightly as he shook his head. _

"_No—you can't. You won't. I won't allow it. You have to help Snape."_

_Ginny felt anger bubbling in her chest. "Who are you to tell me what I will and will not do, Harry Potter? I love you—I am helping you find that horcrux."_

"_No—please, Ginny," he pleaded, letting go of her hands and pulling her forward in a desperate kiss filled with a sort of passion that sent chills down her spine and let fear settle in her heart. "Please, stay and get Snape help. He needs it. He's _dying_. Are you going to let him die? Who are _you _to play God?"_

_She knew why he had said it but it didn't make it hurt any less. Ginny glared at him. "Go, Harry. I'll heal him."_

_He kissed her again, harder and longer. "I'll be back. I promise." And then he turned away and ran down the hall._

' ' '

July 14th, 2002

After lifting the Disillusionment Charm Hermione did the only thing she could think of—she knocked on the door. Only after her knuckles left the wood did she realise how stupid this was—who knocks on the doors of the secret headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix?

But the door opened, and Hermione found herself face-to-face with Ginny Weasley.

For a moment both of them were stock-still, shocked at seeing each other, and then the moment was broken as the redhead shouted "_Stupefy!_" which Hermione narrowly avoided.

"Wait, Gin, it's me!" she shouted, but the youngest Weasley either didn't hear or ignored it, shouting another hex her direction. Hermione dodged it again, pleading for her friend to listen to her. But Ginny did not heed her words, and before she even realised it, the redhead had raised her wand and yelled "_Avada Ke—_" and only adrenaline-enhanced reflexes allowed Hermione to fall to the ground to dodge the curse.

"_Petrificus Totalus!_" Hermione screamed, and immediately Ginny was still, frozen in place.

"It's me Gin, I promise," the brunette said quickly. "Listen, I'll prove it—I know you have a birthmark on your hip shaped like a snitch and that your favourite of your brothers is Ron. I know that you've been in love with Harry since you saw him in King's Cross when you were ten and that you hated Scabbers even before you knew he was Peter Pettigrew. I know—"

"Ginny dear, what's the matter?"

Hermione looked up and saw the comforting figure of Mrs Weasley walking down the front steps and she let out a sigh of relief.

"Ginny, what—_stupefy!_"

Hermione roared a swift _Protego!_ and closed the door behind her, taking a step towards Mrs Weasley. "Molly, it's me. Really me. I promise."

Mrs Weasley thrust the tip of her wand into Hermione's chest, right over her heart. The elder witch's expression looked like she couldn't decide whether or not a curse her or hug her. "Drop your wand."

The brunette did just as she was asked, the sound of wood clattering against wood the only sound now in the hall.

"_Revelio,_" Mrs Weasley said, now waving her wand up and down Hermione's body. The spell had no effect on her, though, and Mrs Weasley seemed convinced, seeing as she quickly gathered Hermione into her arms in a bone-crushing hug. "Welcome back, dear," she whispered. "I'm sorry I tried to stun you, but you understand, don't you?"

"Yes, of course, Mrs Weasley." When she was released from the other woman's grip, Hermione turned to Ginny, saying "_Finite Incantatem_" and waving her wand in her friend's general direction.

As soon as she was released from her magical bonds, Ginny grabbed Hermione and pulled her into an equally bone-crushing hug. "Dear Merlin, I almost killed you!" she exclaimed, shocked.

The brunette laughed lightly, even though the thought terrified her as well. "I forgive you," she said.

"I can't believe you're here!" Ginny said, letting go of Hermione and take a step back, hands still placed on the other witch's shoulders. "Does Malfoy know?"

"I left him a note," Hermione explained. "I went to the Burrow first, but I saw…" she trailed off, not even able to say it aloud. "I couldn't believe it. Is everyone alright?"

Ginny and Mrs Weasley's expression turned sad. "That was more than six months ago, love. Everyone's fine." Mrs Weasley told her, and Hermione's eyebrow furrowed.

"No, it couldn't have been that long ago. I would have known, right? Draco would have told me."

Ginny and her mother glanced at each other, though Hermione could not interpret the message that look sent.

' ' '

January 5th, 2002

_The Order had won, but just barely. And there were so few survivors…_

_They were all huddled in the Great Hall, circled around the line of dead bodies that had collected over the duration of the battle. Everyone was crying; most were sobbing hysterically. _

_Alastor Moody—tough as nails, no bullshit, CONSTANT VIGILIANCE Mad-eye Moody–was dead, his magical eye never to swivel about his head again. There was Katie Bell and Alicia Spinnet, whom she looked up to all throughout her years at Hogwarts as being the best Chasers in the whole school. There was Lee Jordan, the twins' best friend, who would never laugh at another joke. There was Neville's grandmother, Augusta, lying still and bloody beside her grandson, who was blessedly alive with crystal-clear tears dripping down his face. There was Parvati Patil, who was motionless as her twin combed fingers through her hair and let tears fall onto her blood-encrusted jumper. _

_There was Professor McGonagall who had always seemed as a perpetual part of the school; Ginny could never have imagined her dying. If Hogwarts _did _reopen if the war ended, it would never be the same. Her face was grim and serious, as if any moment she would open her eyes and reprimand one of them for being foolish. There was Seamus Finnegan, Harry's second-in-command after Ron died, who was always there for a good, sarcastic jest, who was incredibly loyal, who always charged into a battle first._

_And then there was Bill, lying with the side of his head bashed in, face nearly unrecognisable beside his wife, her beauty not even marred by the blood that painted her clothes a vicious red. The first thing Ginny thought when she saw them was _At least they're together_, right before she burst into tears. And finally, Fred. His younger sister had sat down beside her brother, lying with her head on his chest, holding his hand and wishing, praying, hoping that her eyes were playing tricks on her and that her brothers were smiling and laughing and joking and _not dead.

"_Weasley!"_

_She glanced up and saw Malfoy running towards her. "Weasley," he repeated as he knelt before her, grabbing her shoulders and shaking them hard. "Where's Potter?"_

"_What?"_

"Where's Potter?_" he demanded again, shaking her even harder. "We can't find him. Lupin said he was went into the Room of Requirement and he hasn't shown up since. _Where is he?_"_

"_I-I don't know!" Ginny said. No, this wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. Harry wouldn't be, shouldn't be, couldn't be—_

"_Come on—let's find him."_

_He surprised her by taking her hand in his and leading her gently away from the group, through the halls and up the stairs of Hogwarts towards where they both knew the Room of Requirement lay. _

_They came upon the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and Ginny immediately began pacing near the opposite wall. _I need to be where Harry was. I need to be where Harry was. I need to be where Harry was, _she thought, over and over again as Malfoy looked on. And then a door appeared before her._

' ' '

July 14th, 2002

"We thought you knew," Ginny said quietly, voice tight and strained. "We thought Malfoy had told you everything."

"Draco…" Hermione began, but trailed off. Draco _hadn't_ told her everything, had he? He had barely said anything about the war! And he must have known, hadn't he? Why hadn't he told her this? He'd been so cryptic with everything he'd ever said about the Order... especially about Harry…

"Ginny," she said urgently, grabbing her friend's hands as if they were a life preserver. "Ginny, where's Harry? I want to speak with Harry."

The youngest Weasley gasped and her eyes shone bright with tears. "Malfoy never told you, did he?"

' ' '

January 5th, 2002

_Ginny put a hand to her mouth in horror as she stepped into the room. She could just picture it—demonic flames racing across the floor and climbing up the piles of reject books and clothes and furniture, blazing its way through the aisles with acrid smoke curling up towards the ceiling. Now, all that was left was black ash unidentifiable debris. _

"_No," she whispered hoarsely, grabbing onto a charred, blackened table for support as her knees gave out. "No, this can't be it. It's got to be a different room. The Room's made a mistake."_

"_I'll look for him," was Draco's only reply, and he disappeared between the aisles. _

_Ginny stood straight and clenched her fists. "_Harry! Come out! Goddammit, Harry Potter, come out! I love you!_" she wailed, her voice wrought with despair. But there was no reply. The witch fell to her knees and felt a fresh batch of tears burn her eyes as she struck the floor. "Goddammit," she swore angrily. "Harry, _please, please_. You fucking _promised_ me you'd come back." She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes and wiped at her tears. There was an agony in her chest like one she had never felt before; it tore at her heart and burned her eyes and made her throat clench and close up. "_You fucking promised me!_" she screamed, and then she let the pain wash over her and let the sobs rack through her body. _No, no, no, no, no…

"_Weasley?" _

_The voice was soft and sad, softer and sadder than she ever remembered it being. Ginny looked up to see Malfoy standing in front of her, his eyes glistening more than she thought they would. _

"_It was a FiendFyre Curse." He held out his hand and there, lying in his palm, were a very familiar pair of round spectacles. "I'm sorry," he whispered in a ghost of a voice. _

_Ginny let out a ferocious howl, filled with all the pain and rage and hatred and sadness that had been boiling and freezing her blood over the past few minutes. She let the sound fill the room, wall to wall, floor to to ceiling, and screamed until her voice grew hoarse and she ran out of air._

_She was hardly aware of Malfoy sitting down beside her and drawing her close to him, hardly aware of his hands as they pushed the glasses into her hands, hardly aware of anything but the fact that Harry was gone, Harry had left her, Harry had broken the one promise that ever truly mattered to her._

"I'll be back. I promise."

' ' '

July 14th, 2002

Hermione knew what Ginny was going to say for what felt like centuries before she said it, though it made the blow no less painful. It was like a punch to the stomach, fast and crippling.

"Hermione… Harry's dead. He's been dead for more than six months."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

OMG! GEN POSTED TWICE IN ONE WEEK. SHE MUST BE A FRICKING GODDESS OR SOMETHING! Haha, just kidding XD So yeah. I cried big fat tears when I wrote this, so don't feel badly if you did when you read it. And if you want to cry even harder because you are like me and enjoy stories that make you sob uncontrollably, read the last half of this chapter with the song from HBP "When Ginny Kissed Harry" playing on a loop because it will make the whole thing 100 times sadder. Hope you liked this one, and please review!

Thanks to the reviewers/alerters/favouriters! ~Gen


	15. Decode

**Decode  
><strong>"_How did we get here? _**  
><strong>_I used to know you so well."_**  
><strong>Paramore

* * *

><p><span>July 14<span>th, 2002

"Fucking shit bugger hell fucking dammit!" Draco moaned at no one as he read the note Hermione had left him. He ran back to the bedroom to pull on pants and a t-shirt and grabbed his wand off the bedside table, racing toward the door. He quickly redid the wards on the flat while his mind went into overdrive, questioning every possibility that could have happened in how ever many minutes Hermione already spent at Grimmauld Place.

_Maybe she hasn't even gotten there yet goddammit why was I so stupid maybe she went to the Burrow first but it's not like that's any sort of improvement fucking hell I'm an idiot maybe she's been at Grimmauld Place for hours already and they told her everything Jesus Christ what have I done maybe she's been there but she hasn't found out yet and I can bring her home before they say a word—_

And then the wards were all up and Draco was apparating to the doorstep of Grimmauld Place, the nausea from the experience doing nothing to settle his nerves. He stood there at the door for a moment that felt as if it spanned across a week, his body quaking with the thought of what might lie within this house. _Merlin, please, let her not have found out yet, please goddammit, I beg you._ Then he took a deep breath and opened the door.

She was standing right there, right in the hall, though her back was to him and the two Weasley women stood across from her, and the expressions that paled their faces were enough for Draco to know that Hermione knew, that they had already told her, and that he was knee-deep in his own shit.

She must have heard the door open and close behind him, and he saw the two Weasleys peer around her to him, but it wasn't until he took a single step towards her that she finally whirled around to face him.

The look on her face was what he'd feared it would be—hurt and terrified and betrayed and torn and grief-ridden, all at once, and it killed him, killed him to know that he had been the cause. "Hermione—"

And then she hit him. This was nothing like the smack she had given to him so many nights ago, when he had first come home from the Lestrange raid. That hit had been filled with worry and concern and anxiety. This one was filled with pure fury, wrath, and wretchedness, and it stung as if a block of ice had collided with the side of his face.

Draco fell back against the door, the pain ricocheting across his cheek and down into his heart, and he could barely keep himself on his feet. "Hermione—"

"_No!_" she shrieked. "I trusted you! Goddammit Draco, I fucking _trusted you!_ I asked you _countless _times where Harry was, and you had every single fucking opportunity to say it, but you _lied to my face_."

"Hermione, you have to—"

"I let you _sleep_ in my fucking _bed_, I let you _kiss me_ and I fucking _kissed you back_, I let you _touch me_ for Christ's sake and all the while Harry was six feet under and you _knew_, dammit, you _knew!_"

Draco could tell that Hermione wouldn't have been able to see Ginny or Mrs Weasley's faces as they watched on, but _he_ could, and he wished desperately that he hadn't. Ginny looked horrified and furious, her face set with rage, and Mrs Weasley looked absolutely shell-shocked.

"Hermione, listen to me," the blonde said, walking forward and trying to take her hands in his. "You didn't see yourself back then, right after he died. I didn't think you were going to survive a week longer, much less six months. His death would have put you over the edge, I'm sure of it. I didn't tell you to protect you—I did it because I love y—"

"No!" she screamed again, wrenching her hands away from his and stumbling backwards, as if she couldn't get away from him fast enough. "Don't say that. You have no right to say that. I asked you even when I got _better_, Draco, but you didn't tell me a single fucking thing. Harry was my best friend, my _brother_. I _loved him, _and now I can't even remember the last words I said to him." She was crying now, her tears wet and bright against her face. "What else have you lied to me about?"

Draco's heart was in agony as he heard the pain in her voice, the regret, the loss and the anger. It shook him and scared him and made him want to turn back time more than anything else in his life. "Nothing! I swear it on my life. Please believe me," he pleaded to her as doubt darkened her beautiful features. "I did it because I wanted to keep you safe, to stop you from destroying yourself." When he approached her again she didn't push him away, and he lifted a hand to her cheek.

But now she recoiled from his touch, as if it disgusted her. "And then you lied later so you could get into my knickers," she accused him viciously, and Draco's blood ran cold as Mrs Weasley gasped behind them.

"No—Hermione—how could you even _think_ that? Please—"

"Go, Draco. Go and get your _shit_ out of my flat and then don't come near me. Fight for the Order, go back to Voldemort, I don't give a _damn_, but don't ever come near me."

Draco glanced at Mrs Weasley for help but she simply shook her head. Unlike Ginny, there was no anger in her eyes, just raw disappointment and sadness, and that hurt ten times more than the anger that radiated from her daughter after he had spent so long gaining her trust and support.

"I really do love you," Draco said quietly, and for a moment he thought the wall Hermione had built against him would crumble, but he was wrong; perhaps it had even grown taller. "I would _never_ lie about that." And then he turned around and left Grimmauld Place, apparating to Hermione's flat for what would be the last time.

' ' '

"Hermione—"

"I'm fine Gin. Honestly, I'm fine. I don't want to talk about it," she said as she turned back to the two Weasleys. "I want to know what's been going on. Draco was wrong and cruel, but I also haven't asked about nearly anyone else, which was selfish and ridiculous of me. So what's happened?" she said, and Ginny sighed.

"Come into the kitchen," she said, taking Hermione's hand and leading her to the table. She and Mrs Weasley took a seat across from her.

"Alright dear. Tell us what you already know."

"When he came h—back from his raids, he simply said that everyone was okay. But we all know how trustworthy his words are," Hermione said, her voice a bitter blade.

Ginny and Mrs Weasley glanced at each other yet again and one of them took a deep breath. "Well, dear… It's not been exactly like that. We've had victories, of course," Mrs Weasley assured her, patting her hand consolingly. "But like in any war, we've sustained losses."

"Who's… gone?" Hermione asked timidly. "I need to know."

And then they went down the list and told her every single one of the Order members that had died over the past year.

"Quite a few ministry members that had ties with the Order, and people in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, like Madame Rosmerta and Tom at the Leaky Cauldren and Florean Fortescue… Rita Skeeter…" Hermione inhaled sharply. Skeeter was a ghastly, deplorable woman, but she hardly deserved to die. "Mrs Longbottom, Neville's gran…" Now Nevile had not one family member left… "Madame Promfrey, that was quite a while ago… Professor Sinistra, the Astronomy teacher… Zacharias Smith… Parvati Patil… Mad-Eye… Alicia Spinnet and Katie Bell…"

"Lee and Seamus… Professor McGonagall," Mrs Weasley continued when it seemed like Ginny couldn't say another word. "And Fleur…"

Hermione gasped again, but there were two more names yet to be said. "And Bill and Fred," Mrs Weasley finished, and at that point all three of them were crying, and Hermione was _sobbing_, her shoulders shaking and her whole body trembling.

"I-I'm s-so _sorry_ th-that I've m-m-missed all this," she said through her tears. "I-I c-can't believe I wasn't th-there to s-say goodbye t-to them. I c-can't believe—"

"It's alright, dear," Mrs Weasley said consolingly, holding Hermione's hand tightly. "We all know you haven't been in the best shape either."

"But I should have asked more… I should have _demanded_ answers from Draco once I started feeling better. I can't believe I was so selfish," she whispered.

There was the sound of footsteps and then—"Did you start lunch yet, Mum?" And Hermione whipped around and saw George walking through the doorway, and before he could utter another word she had jumped up from her seat and tackled him in a bear-hug that nearly knocked him flat on the ground.

"Jesus—Hermione? Is that you?" he said, a disbelieving smile lighting up his face.

"In the flesh," she said with a shaky laugh.

"Dear Merlin, when did you come in?"

"About a half an hour ago, I think. George—_I'm so sorry_. About Fred. I can't imagine—"

His face turned blank and emotionless. "It's alright, Hermione. He's safe now. No more pain."

She nodded, understanding that he didn't want to talk about it any longer and then shrieked as George gathered her up into his own bear-hug. "Merlin, I've missed you," he said happily as she hugged him back. "Are you here to stay, then?"

The brunette hesitated for a moment. "Yes. I'm here to stay."

"Good. We've got to go tell Dumbledore and everyone else." George let go of her and walked into the hallway, shouting "Oi! Everyone, Hermione's back!"

Even in the kitchen Hermione could hear all the replies as people emerged from their rooms—

"Hermione?"

"Hermione's back?"

"Hermione!"

"_Really?_"

"You lot, get down here—Hermione's here!"

And then they all filtered into the kitchen: Neville with his arm in a sling and Luna on crutches and Angelina Johnson and Oliver Wood and Lupin even though he limped the whole way and Hagrid, who had to duck to get into the kitchen and Hannah Abbott with a patch over one eye and Dean and Colin Creevey and even _Cormac_, they were all filing into the kitchen and giving her hugs and laughing and smiling for what appeared to be the first time in days. And Hermione got her joyous reunion with only Draco's betrayal hanging in the back of her mind to spoil it.

' ' '

July 20th, 2002

"Weasley?"

Ginny looked up from the book she was reading by wand light, a crust of bread poised in front of her mouth. "Malfoy," she said, putting down the piece of bread and holding her wand higher. Suspicion trickled down her back in the form of shivers. "What do you want?"

"Nothing, I suppose" he said, rubbing his eyes. He wore only a pair of pyjama pants that trailed on the ground as he walked, and his hair stood up in all different directions. She could tell he had just rolled out of bed. "What time is it?"

For a moment she contemplated whether she was going to give him an honest answer or just tell him to fuck off, but there was something about the expression on his face, lost and confused and disoriented like a child's, that made her feel strangely pitying and she looked down at her watch. "1:30 in the morning."

Draco walked over to one of the cabinets and took out a bowl of dry cereal, shaking the contents into a cracked bowl. "Why are you up?" he asked, taking a seat across from her at the table and munching on the corn flakes. Ginny wondered briefly if he was sleep walking or if he thought he was dreaming, because surely he wouldn't have been this easy around her had he been fully awake.

Over the past week or so, the younger members of the Order had shunned Draco once it got out that he'd practically kept Hermione hostage over the past months on purpose, kept her completely in the dark, especially about Harry, and had slept with her, on top of it. The adults, such as Remus and her mother, hardly talked to him either, but were much more forgiving, keeping their emotions out of the way whenever they did exchange words with the former-Slytherin. The only people who behaved no differently towards him were Luna and Dumbledore himself, which was to be expected, Ginny supposed.

Right after Draco and Hermione's row the youngest Weasley had been livid and oh-so-very close to slapping him herself, but she forced herself to ignore him, to pay more attention to Hermione instead. After that she avoided him like the plague, refusing to even make eye contact with him lest she become furious all over again and hex him in the middle of an Order meeting. Gradually, though, Ginny began to understand and even agree with Draco's reasoning behind keeping Harry's death from Hermione in the early months, when she couldn't even take care of herself properly—but that did nothing to make up for the fact that they had spent months together without him saying a single word.

"Couldn't go to sleep," she told him. "It's too hot in my room." Which was sort of true, considering she slept pretty damn near the top floor of the house, but it wasn't the _actual _reason—which was that Hermione had started the habit of babbling while she slept and Ginny didn't have the heart to call her on it. "How about you?" she asked, thinking that he probably wouldn't even remember this conversation in the morning if he wasn't properly awake.

Draco ran a hand through his already-dishevelled hair. "I haven't had much luck with sleep since Sunday," he confessed.

Ginny narrowed her eyes. Now she _definitely_ knew he wasn't fully awake. Had Draco had all his wits about him, he would never have told her that. Having reached that conclusion, she decided to humour him. "Why not?"

The former-Slytherin gave her a look that made her question her earlier assessment on his state of consciousness, but when he spoke his voice was still slow with sleep. "I'm used to sleeping with Hermione next to me," he said. "It's bizarre, not having her with me anymore."

Despite herself, Ginny felt her heart soften a bit. "You… you miss her a lot, then?"

He gave a strangled laugh. "That's like asking if I'd miss my wand. If you miss Potter."

Her heart hardened toward him in an instant. _How dare he! _"At least Hermione's not _dead,_ you ungrateful twat," she snapped at him.

"At least Potter never hated you," he countered, sounding so alert at this point that it made her nervous.

Ginny felt her blood boil and angry tears spring into her eyes. "At least you have a fucking _chance_. Harry's not coming back. Hermione could forgive you." _Why did I say that? Malfoy doesn't deserve that hope._

But her words seemed to have the desired effect on him—his expression turned contrite and he looked down at his lap. "You're right. I'm sorry I said that." And then he looked up, right into her eyes, and his gaze was so intense that she couldn't rip herself away from it. "Do _you_ think she'll ever forgive me?" Draco asked, and it sounded like he was pleading with her..

Ginny was at a loss for words, which was a true rarity if there ever was one. "She says your name in her sleep," she blurted before she could stop herself.

Draco looked startled. "Really?"

"Yes," she said with a sigh. How did she become such a softie with him? "Quite often, actually." That was the reason she could never get to sleep anymore.

The blonde brightened like a child who had just been presented with a new toy broom. "Good night, Weasley," he said, standing up to dump the rest of his cereal into the rubbish bin and throwing his bowl into the sink. "Get some rest, yeah?"

"Yeah," Ginny replied dazedly, feeling quite bewildered. _I bet he was awake the whole time, the Slytherin bastard,_ she thought, but as she remembered the way his face lit up, she wondered if it really was such a bad thing after all.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

So this one's a bit of a shortie, sorry about that... As I writer, I like how Draco and Hermione's fight turned out, but as a Dramione-shipper it broke my heart to write... T_T But before I get any comments on how Hermione handled it, just remember that she's furious with Draco, angry at herself, acting on impulse, heartbroken, and above all, human, so try not to judge too harshly :) Sorry for the sudden onslaught of Paramore songs, but they're so such an awesome group, right? XD

My new goal for the summer is to update every Monday and Thursday, so hopefully that schedule will go as planned but please don't hate me if it doesn't... But I definitely shouldn't be leaving more than a week between updates what with the insane amount of time I now have on my hands XD Also, if you've noticed I've got a cover for this story now. This wonderful girl on tumblr drew the art and allowed me to edit it for a cover; I know it's really small and hard to see, but I can't really do anything to fix that, unfortunately...

Before I go, I would just like to thank all **151** of all the beautiful people who have given this story a chance and currently have it on their alert list; it just melts my heart :) Thanks to all my reviewers and alerters, as well, you guys are brilliant! ~Gen


	16. Breathe Again with Important Author Note

**Author's Note:**

I'm sorry for reposting this chapter, guys, but I wasn't sure how to get the news out to all of you without breaking the whole "You may not post author's notes as chapters" rule. I'll be going on HIATUS with posting this story for a while, and when I _do_ come back it'll be with a nearly complete, new and improved "Delicate". I've already gotten behind and I feel like what I _am_ putting out isn't as good as it should be. Plus, I've found I'm getting a lot less free time than I thought I would this summer, and the last thing I want to do is spend more than a year dragging this thing out, chapter by painfully-late chapter. I'd rather write it all as well as I can and then release later it with good timing and good writing. I'm sorry to all of my dedicated readers, especially the lovelies who have been with me since day one back in January when this was going to be a little 10-chapter ficlet; you all are such beautiful people and your support has meant so much to me!

Again, _I'm so sorry and hope to see you all soon!_

~Gen

* * *

><p><strong>Breathe Again<br>**"_[She's] the air I would kill to breathe…  
>I am left hoping someday I'll breathe again."<em>  
>Sara Bareilles<p>

* * *

><p><span>August 6<span>th, 2002

"Take a deep breath Hermione," Ginny reminded her.

"I _have _been taking deep breaths! Many, in fact!"

"Taking deep breaths and hyperventilating are two completely different things," the redhead reminded her, amused.

"You're right, you're right, I've got to calm down. I mean, this isn't like at school where one wrong move could get you half-marks… this is more like one wrong move and I could get stuck in Grimmauld Place all day and sit at home while all my friends are out risking their necks—"

"Calm down, Hermione. You're going to do well. It's only been about a month and you're already as amazing as you were, if not _better_. This'll be a cakewalk for you."

The former-Gryffindor rubbed her hands on her jeans nervously, looking unconvinced.

"Oh, come on. You beat Justin, Ernie, Susan… you even tied with Angelina, and she's, like, one of the top five duellists in the Order!"

"I didn't technically didn't beat Justin. He slipped and fell while dodging one of my spells."

"Trust me, Hermione, in battle... that stuff counts. Now go in—Kingsley and everyone are waiting for you."

Hermione gave her friend a quick hug and turned to the training room (which was really one of the many sitting rooms in Grimmauld Place that had been converted to fit the Order's needs).

"Good Morning, Miss Granger," Kingsley said in his deep, calming voice as she walked in. He was flanked by Angelina, Oliver, and Neville, who waved and smiled at her in turn. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Hermione replied, pulling her wand from her pocket and twirling it nervously between her fingers.

"Now, remember, Miss Granger," Kingsley reminded her. "This is just to make sure you're in good health and competent enough to be out on the field, alright? So you don't need to waste energy with impressive spells or strategies—just that you can get by in a fight. Alright?"

"Alright," she said, squaring her shoulders determinedly.

"And Johnson, Wood, and Longbottom will be fighting at 100% speed and strength, but the most damage they'll do is stun you."

"Got it," Hermione replied, and Kingsley took a step back to the corner of the room. The three of her opponents stood across from her, wands at the ready, waiting for Kingsley's cue.

"Begin," he said smoothly.

Oliver moved first, lunging forward to try and disarm her. Hermione easily dodged the attack, though, flying out of the way and sending her own "_Expelliarmus!"_ his way. Not checking to see whether she hit her mark (she did), Hermione spun around to face Neville, who was now charging at her from her left.

"_Impedimenta!_" Hermione shouted, but Neville swiftly blocked it with a shield charm. The brunette was pleasantly surprised—obviously he had improved a lot since cheering about his first successful disarming back in the D.A.

"_Stupefy!_" Angelina yelled, and Hermione uttered her own shield charm before turning to face Oliver, who had found his wand and was shooting more jinxes at her.

Their sparring seemed to go on for quite some time, but Hermione knew it had only been a few minutes. When Kingsley called "time", though, Oliver Wood was lying flat on the ground, out cold, and Neville and Angelina were both breathing loudly with their own minor bruises. Hermione herself was exhausted and sore, but felt a sort of invigorating triumph at her victory.

"How did I do, Kingsley?" she asked as she helped Wood to his feet, stumbling as he stood.

"I still have to get Dumbledore's approval, but right now you look quite ready for duty," Kingsley said with a wide smile. "Welcome back Miss Granger."

' ' '

August 11th, 2002

"Weasley!"

Ginny looked up to see Draco peering around the doorway to the library. She wasn't sure how to react—her conversation with the Slytherin a few weeks ago had her _thinking_ of the Slytherin more forgivingly, but they hadn't exchanged a single word since then. She decided to answer and just see how it went from there.

"What, Malfoy?"

"Okay, so you know how your mother is making this whole big dinner thing tomorrow night, and then we have a huge Order Meeting afterward?" Draco said, taking a seat on the armchair across from her.

"Yeah…"

"Alright, so where does everyone usually sit now-a-days?"

"What kind of question is that?" Ginny said, irritated.

"I just want to know so I can figure out how to stay clear of Hermione," Draco explained, tone just short of icy. "If you remember, she explicitly asked me to do so."

_Huh, "ask" was a pretty light way of putting it. She _demanded_ him,_ the redhead thought.

"Okay. Listen, 'cause I'm only going to explain this once. Dumbledore sits at the head of the table. Harry and Kingsley used to sit on either side of him with Lupin and Seamus next and then my Dad and Mum. Then it was Hermione and Neville, Luna and Angelina, Fred and George, Bill and Charlie, and then me and you, and then whoever else was there going down the line. And the whole arrangement changed at a moment's notice, depending on who was there and who wasn't"

"I remember that, thanks," Draco said, and she could tell he was trying to keep his tone as level as possible.

"Now since we're… missing some people, it's Dumbledore, then Lupin and Kingsley, Mum and Dad—Snape hardly ever comes anymore—Neville and Luna, Angelina and George, Charlie and Oliver, and then Me and probably Hermione. Now, if you want to stay as far away from Hermione as possible, I would sit across from Ernie McMillan, who sits towards the end of the table next to Hannah Abbott and Justin Finch-Fletchley. Zacharias Smith used to sit across from him, but no one has filled his seat since he died."

"Yeah, I've noticed," Draco said. "Why is that?"

"He was the first to die on the field, in the first battle," Ginny said simply.

"So you're asking me to sit in the seat of the man who ever died fighting the Second Wizarding War?" the Slytherin said incredulously.

"Trust me—it's more out of habit than anything else at this point that we don't fill it. And there really aren't any other open seats, so everyone'll understand."

"Or chase me out of the dining room like a lynch mob," Draco muttered under his breath.

Ginny hesitated, wondering if she wanted to say what was running through her mind. _You really shouldn't, or you'll give him the wrong idea,_ she thought. _Can't have Malfoy think you're actually being _nice_ to him._ But her conscience won over. "Listen, Malfoy—you're still an Order Member. You've been invaluable when you're on duty. You saved quite a few lives on the field. No one forgets that here," she told him. "Just because we're pissed at you doesn't mean it erases your past actions. You're not an enemy anymore. Just a moron."

"Thanks, She-Weasel," he said, partly sardonic.

"No problem, He-Ferret," she replied, not sure how big the sardonic part was and how big the honestly thankful part was.

' ' '

August 12th, 2002

You had to give it to him—he'd tried. Draco had gone to Ginny, explained about dinner, and asked her about the whole seating arrangement. He listened to her advice, sitting in Zacharias Smith's old seat, as far away from Hermione is one could possibly get while simultaneously in the same room. But this was the first time he had seen Hermione in almost a month, and he couldn't help but sneak a glance now and then. While she looked healthier—not as skinny, not as pale, and more confident—her expression was hard and serious, which seemed strange to him. He supposed he'd gotten spoiled on her smiles.

Only once did she glance his way at the same time he glanced hers, and she looked at him—not with anger, as he'd expected—but with a sort of blank expression, like she was pretending to have never met him at all, which surprised and wounded him more than the anger would have.

"There are two—possibly three—horcruxes left," Dumbledore was saying, voice calm but grim. Draco knew that there was the slightest possibility that Harry had not destroyed the diadem when he torched the Room of Requirement, but he doubted it survived the blaze. Even though its destruction as almost a certainty, the Order had not yet been able to return to Hogwarts to confirm the fact. "And we have gained reason to believe that one rests in the Lestrange House."

There was a collective intake of breath from every Order member; since the Order had captured and ransacked Malfoy Manor, the Lestrange House had become the unofficial headquarters for Voldemort and his off-duty Death Eaters. Attempting to infiltrate that particular house would probably become one of the most dangerous missions any member would ever face.

"Let us be honest with each other," Dumbledore began, and the tone of his voice meant that whatever came next was not going to make any one very happy. "The Order is losing this war. We have lost too many of our most valuable members, while the Death Eaters grow stronger every day. The most chance we have of winning, of destroying Lord Voldemort once and for all, is destroying these horcuxes. We can no longer waste time attempting to kill the many heads of this beast—we must strike for the heart."

There were an equal number of murmurs of agreement and noises of doubt, but Dumbledore continued on nonetheless.

"I propose a team of our ten strongest duellists, given the assignment of attacking the Lestrange House. This will be a small, quick team of the most skilled of us, with the only goal being to retrieve the horcrux and make it out alive.

"Kingsley, Remus, Tonks, Miss Lovegood, Mr Longbottom, Miss Weasley, Miss Johnson, Miss Granger, Mr Malfoy and I will infiltrate the Lestrange House and recover the horcrux in three days' time."

"But Professor—excuse me," Ginny Weasley said, blushing at her own outburst, "Is it really all that… wise to send Hermione on this particular mission? She just got back on duty, and…"

Draco completely agreed and knew a few others would, as well, but he also knew the former-Gryffindor would be indignant, which was evident by the way she glared at her redheaded friend and elbowed Ginny in the ribs.

Dumbledore smiled understandingly, though. "Miss Granger has proved to be in excellent condition, both in mind and body, and as one of our most skilled members I have decided to include her on this assignment." He continued with another smile.

"Severus has informed me that it is most likely kept in the dungeons of the house, in a magical safe—that is our goal. The horcrux is almost certainly the Cup of Helga Hufflepuff.

"This mission can only be attempted once," Dumbledore continued, expression stony and solemn. "If we fail, the horcrux will no doubt be moved to a different, even _safer_ location, not to mention the lives that will be lost if all goes wrong. So it is of the utmost importance that those I chose to accompany me on this assignment are willing, focused, and able. If any of you wish not to join me, please speak now."

The silence that followed was heavy and absolute, and Dumbledore allowed himself a small smile.

"With so few Order members and horcruxes left, it is an inevitability that this war will end soon, for better or for worse.

"For those of you who are losing faith and hope, please remember what we fight for. We fight for all that is Right and Just and Good in this world, and for the freedom of all those Voldemort has oppressed. We fight to avenge those he has taken away from us, all the friends and family members that will never see a safe, happy world once more. Think of those who have sacrificed so much for this cause, and fight for them."

Draco's gaze shifted to Hermione, watching her carefully for her reaction. Her face was expressionless, but her eyes gleamed with tears. He instantly wanted to rise from his seat and embrace her, but forced himself to resist the urge. He hardly noticed when Dumbledore began speaking again.

"I think now would be an excellent time to thank you all, for fighting so bravely, so valiantly."

"Thank _you_, Dumbledore," Tonks piped up. "Thank _you_ for all that you've done for the Order." Everyone murmured and nodded in agreement, and the old wizard smiled gently.

"A toast is in order, I believe," he said, raising his cup. "To the Order of the Phoenix."

Draco and all the others raised their cups as well. "To the Order of the Phoenix," they echoed.

' ' '

August 15th, 2002

Hermione was having nightmares again.

They weren't as paralysing as the ones she had during the previous year, and she was almost certain she no longer screamed while she nightmared—though just in case she placed silencing charms on herself while she slept in hopes that she would not rouse Ginny and—once again—become a cause for alarm. She was also still perfectly sane during the day, able to function properly and hold a conversation without anyone suspecting a thing; though she felt the memory of the nightmares plaguing and poisoning her mind.

The former-Gryffindor was terrified at the idea of returning back to her half-mad, half-alive state that she suffered through for so many months, though the only thing she could think of that might reverse the process was getting back with Draco, for his presence had seemed to cure her before. But she loathed that idea almost as much as going mad again. He had already proven himself untrustworthy in the worst way possible.

The nightmares almost always began with Ron's death, and the night before the Lestrange Mission did not break the pattern. As soon as she closed her eyes and slipped into the realm of unconsciousness, the terror began.

_God. It hurt so much. It hurt everywhere. She could tell without looking that yellow bruises had bloomed all over her neck and legs and arms and chest and face, and that she must be a sight to see with the dried blood crackling in her hair and on her cheek and splattered all over her clothes. It was agony where the brute of a Death Eater held on to her wrists, forcing them behind her back. The chains Greyback had forced on her made her wrists chafed and they wept blood with every wrong movement. _

_"Make her kneel before me, Yaxley." Hermione looked up as she and her guard entered the hall. _

_Bellatrix. The former-Gryffindor instantly felt an invigorating mixture of pure loathing and paralysing fear take hold of her body. "Make the Mudblood kneel before me," the crazed witch said, "Where she belongs."_

_A hate as sharp and reviving as fire consumed Hermione but she was nearly powerless to resist, her now-spindly arms and emaciated figure no match for Yaxley's strength. She attempted to fight him, twisting under his clenched hands and ignoring the pain of her wrists, but to no avail._

_So she settled for spitting at Bellatrix's feet._

_The deranged witch was in front of her in a second, dark black eyes alight with cruel insanity, like live coals. She procured a thin, silver dagger from her robes and held it to her captive's face. "How dare you," she hissed, voice dangerously quiet. "And they all said you were smart." Bellatrix dragged the dagger across Hermione's skin, the blade biting into her already-abused flesh. Hot red blood trickled down her cheek while hot white pain lanced across her face. The brunette bit her tongue, fighting back a piercing yelp. _

_"How does that feel, Mudblood?" Bellatrix inquired, eyes shining with wicked glee as she increased pressure on the blade. "Agonizing, isn't it? But you and I both know that physical pain is nothing compared to pain of the heart. A simple _Crucio _is not the worst I can do." She stood up. "Don't worry, darling," she said, the endearment lost in the toxin of her voice. "You'll pay for that little stunt you pulled. And everything else you've done."_

_"By that logic, you should watch out, Bellatrix," Hermione said through her teeth. "Your comeuppance will no doubt be ten times worse than mine, you wretched _cow_." The other witch, eyes inflamed with rage, reached out to slap Hermione across the face, the swift strike tripling the pain that set fire to her cheek._

_"Filthy Mudblood still doesn't know her place," she told Yaxley. "Still thinks she's indestructible. Oh, yes, Potter's little golden girl is above all this." Bellatrix grinned, displaying grotesque brown stumps that slightly resembled teeth, and Hermione could feel the fear oozing down across her shoulders. "Not for long, pet," she said delightedly, then shouted at the door, "Bring the Weasley boy in!"_

Ron? _Hermione thought frantically. _How did she get Ron?

_Fenrir Greyback and the Snatcher, Scabior, carried a struggling Ron Weasley through the doors of the hall. The redhead was already sporting a black eye, a split lip, and gash on his head that was made evident only by the blood that stained the side of his face. Dread and fear for him trudged down Hermione's throat._

_The expression smeared across his face as he caught sight of her was enough to shatter her heart. How she must look to him, bruised and bloody and as skinny as a walking stick, trembling with the pain of a hundred past-_Crucio_'s. "Hermione!" he roared, struggling even harder against the two thugs who held him fast. "Don't you touch her, you crazy bitch," he shouted at Bellatrix, and she cackled._

_"Too late, my dear," the witch said, descending down on her catpive and pulling at her skin around the new cut, displaying the wound and causing Hermione to wince and hiss out a breath of pain—all for Ron's benefit. "But I wouldn't be worrying about the little Mudblood whore," Bellatrix said, striding over to Ron. "You would be better off worrying about your own well-being. Or, rather, your being, seeing as it won't be all that 'well' for long." She turned to werewolf. "Set him on the floor over there, where we can all get a nice look at him."_

_Greyback grunted in reply but did as he was told, reaching to restrain one side of Ron as he was laid across the floor. Scabior took the other side, and both bared their teeth a foul grin._

_"What are you going to do to him?" Hermione cried out, her terror for Ron causing her to lose all resolve. _

_"You'll have to wait and see," Bellatrix replied, horrifically elated. With a flick of her wand Ron was restrained by invisible ropes, and Greyback and Scabior stepped away from his writhing body._

_The dark witch strode up to the youngest Weasley boy, who stared back at her defiantly. "Don't worry, Hermione," he said daringly. "I'm not afraid of her."_

_The Death Eater let out another mad cackle. "You should be, boy."_

_Without warning, Bellatrix's wand was aimed at Ron and she was screaming a delighted "_Crucio!_" at the youngest Weasley boy. He squeezed his eyes shut, oblivious to Hermione's sobs as she clawed at her face. Bellatrix cut off the spell and Ron relaxed, his breath laboured and tears leaving crystalline tracks down his cheeks. _

_"Is that all you've got?" he said through gritted teeth._

_"No, don't provoke her Ron!"_

_"Ah, the mudblood is justified in her warning, blood traitor. I have much more in store for you, boy." _Crucio _after _Crucio_ was sent into Ron's chest and every time Hermione shut her eyes, unable to watch another moment, until Yaxley drove the heel of his hand into her temple and demanded her to keep her eyes open. _

_Finally, Bellatrix seemed to get bored with the torture, and when she lowered her wand Hermione let out a sigh of relief._

_The Death Eater whirled around at the sound. "Ah-ah-ah," she said, shaking her wand at the Gryffindor. "I'm not done with him yet, Mudblood."_

_"Don't call her that!" Ron snapped. "Don't you dare call her that name."_

_"Ron, please—"_

_"You _dare_ tell _me _what to do?" Bellatrix howled. "It's time you learned your place, you insolent, stupid little Weasley."_

_And with a series of movements that looked no more than a blur, she sliced her dagger across Ron, seemingly uncaring where she hit—his face, his arms, his chest, his shoulders. He let out a hoarse cry, eyes folding shut in unimaginable pain, but let nothing else breach his lips, his brow set in determination. Hermione cried in his stead, giving up all pretences of calmness or strength, thrashing wildly under Yaxley's grip and sobbing uncontrollably. "Let him go! Please, stop it, _please_… Ron…"_

_Bellatrix tore viciously at his shirt, tearing it to shreds and then discarding it, throwing the tatters to the side. She licked her lips, and Ron shuddered. "You know, little Weasley," she said, clapping her hands together. "You would almost be _attractive_ if it not for your disgusting ginger hair or those deplorable freckles. A pity, really, considering how otherwise _handsome_ you are. I think I might have to have a taste." Ron's eyes widened in disgust and revulsion as she leaned down and drew her lips languorously across a cut that arced across his chest. _

_Ron screamed, and the world broke in pieces. _Her mouth is hexed, _Hermione thought, horrified._

_It went on for what seemed like hours, Bellatrix planting misleadingly soft kisses across the Weasley's torso, each touch causing him to release a strangled scream or sob. _

_"Please, stop!" Hermione moaned. "You can't _do_ this! Please, please stop! Hurt me instead, _hurt me instead_!"_

_"Shut up, Mudblood," Yaxley commanded harshly, aiming a rapid kick into her spine. Her back arched and her bones screamed in protest. She could feel the bruise blooming against her skin. _

_Hermione continued to shout anyway, her gaze transfixed on Ron's near-unconscious face, distressed panic twisting her cries into something primitive and wretched. Finally, Bellatrix sat up, wiping her lips on her sleeve. "Delicious," she said._

_"Ron," Hermione said hoarsely. "Ron."_

_"Hermione," came his reply, as soft and sad and beautiful as a phoenix's song._

_"Oh, how sweet," Bellatrix said sardonically. "You two really are precious. A pity we had to let this go to waste." Without warning she swooped down on him, pressing the tip of the dagger into his chest, directly over his heart. "Let's see how long it takes for the Weasley to die, shall we, dearie?" And then Ron was screaming, the loudest yet, a long, soul-ripping, anguished stream of tortured sound that ripped from between his lips and flooded the hall with his agony. _

_And Bellatrix laughed. _

_"NO!" Hermione sobbed, over and over again, struggling harder than ever against Yaxley's fierce hold, feeling his nails dig into the skin of her arms and the kicks he aimed into her back and legs. She watched in trepidation as Ron began to choke on the blood that spurted from his throat, limbs engaged in perturbing spasms, back arched in pain; she saw him attempt to form a name—_her name_—on his blood-red lips before the dagger was inches deep and he grew still, his lovely, beautiful blue eyes empty of life._

_Hermione let out a shrill scream that slowly blended with her moans. She couldn't do it—she couldn't do it, live another day with this memory slaughtering her mind, live another day without him, her love, by her side and saying her name—_

_"RON! GOD, NO! PLEASE, KILL ME! I'M BEGGING YOU, KILL ME TOO!" she screeched, struggling against Yaxley, and Bellatrix abandoned the Weasley's body, returning to stand in front of her. The mad witch crouched down to be level with the former-Gryffindor's soaked face, drenched with her own briny tears._

_A twisted grin lit the Lestrange's face. "Ah, but that would be too easy, Mudblood," Bellatrix whispered, her breath foul across Hermione's face. "Though I do appreciate the begging." She looked up at Yaxley. "Let her go."_

"_What?" said the other Death Eater, bewildered. _

"_Let her go, you imbecile!" she bellowed, and he immediately loosened his hold. Instantly, Hermione rushed to Ron's corpse, gathering him up in her arms and sobbing over his still-warm body. She brushed his hair from his face and kissed his cheeks and forehead and mouth over and over again, mumbling his name through each kiss. _

"_Now watch, Yaxley," Bellatrix hissed, though Hermione could hardly hear the other witch's words through her own pain, and did not care to heed them any longer. "This is how you break them." _

_And suddenly there was agony, nothing but crippling agony that had Hermione flat on her back and writhing, her fingers curled into claws as her spine arched and quivered and silent screams hurled themselves from her wide open mouth and her vision blurred to white—_

_And when it returned she was in a hallway. A wide, decrepit hallway in Grimmauld Place and there was the most beautiful music playing, a sad, flowing tune played by a single piano. She didn't walk toward the sound—she hovered, she floated, her movements smooth and slightly… ethereal._

_Hermione turned through many hallways until she came upon a shut door, and she could tell that behind it, she would find the source of the beautiful music. The door was not locked and it opened easily, hardly creaking at all, which was strange for any door in the old house._

_There, sitting at an beautifully ancient grand piano, was Draco, his fingers gliding as gracefully over the keys in a song Hermione had never heard him play before, despite having listened to his entire repertoire while they lived together. _

_Somewhere in the back of her mind she recognised that she was furious with him, and did not trust him, and wasn't sure she even loved him anymore. But her dream-self did not seem to care about any of those things, and she advanced towards him, taking a seat beside him on the piano bench. _

"_Hello, Draco," she said softly when he didn't seem to notice her presence. Her voice startled him, though, and the blonde jumped in surprise. _

"_H-H-Hermione," he stammered. "Wha-Why are you here?"_

_The brunette shrugged. "Dreams are funny things. They take you to strange places with people you never would have spent time with otherwise." When he did not reply, still seeming quite stunned and unable to form coherent words, she asked, "What were you playing?"_

_Draco rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture that meant he was taken aback, baffled, or confused, she knew. "Well, it's a song I wrote. A song… I wrote for you."_

_Hermione knew she ought to be surprised or annoyed or suspicious, but all she felt was a calm sort of happiness. "What is it called?"_

_Draco hesitated; "_La Berceuse de la Princesse_—The Princess's Lullabye."_

_Hermione felt herself smile. "That's lovely. Can you play it again?"_

_He paused again, but turned back to the keys and began playing. The sounds that issued from the grand piano were stunning—the song he had woven for her were made from the most beautiful, most delicate of strands, and it caressed her ears and her heart. The notes were like snowflakes that had fallen down from the purest of clouds, cool and gentle on her skin._

"_Oh, Draco," she murmured, all animosity she ever felt toward him forgotten as her lullaby resonated about the room. "It's beautiful. Gorgeous."_

_The blonde's brow furrowed, as if her kindness confused him. "Thank you," he said, and his voice sounded unsure. Hermione carefully threaded her arm through his, making sure not to interrupt the song, and rested her head against his shoulder. She'd forgotten how good this felt, just being close to him._

"_I'm sorry I hit you." Hermione wasn't even sure why that came out of her mouth—she couldn't remember ever hitting him, or ever _wanting _to hit him. It just seemed like the right thing to say; and if she _had _hit him, she _did_ feel apologetic._

"_I-It's alright," Draco stuttered, and simply hearing his voice made her heart swell pleasantly. She nuzzled her face into his shoulder, her lullaby still ringing out from the grand piano, and closed her eyes, feeling very much at peace and quite glad she was no longer nightmaring._

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

Soooo... how is everyone?

I'M SORRY I KEPT YOU WAITING SO DAMN LONG BUT MY INTERNET HAS BEEN AN ASS AND BEFORE THAT I HAD WRITER'S BLOCK AND I'M SORRY

Okay doke, I'm done freaking out. But yeah, I am so sorry for the crazy-long wait and you are all free to yell at me for said wait! More bad news-I'm not sure if I'll be able to post again by this Thursday because I have to work on some original work for a while, I've got a deadline this weekend, but Monday should be no problem!

On a happier note, I passed 200 pages! Well, I passed 200 pages a bit ago but I kept forgetting to inform you guys XD Also, I'm almost to 100 reviews... Three more! Come on guys, if you get me to 100 I shall smile all day and love you all to death, you already-lovely people :) Thanks for all your reviews and favourites and alerts and support, all of you are beautiful! XD

I'll be back as soon as I can!  
>~Gen<p> 


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